I just joined a group that will be starting a biweekly gaming session with Showdowrun4e rules. The first meet we spent hours creating characters (with the help of Daegann's character gen). Days later i finished reading everything i could on shadowrun and i've been imagining a blind character concept. The problem i'm having is i want to be useful for my group while maintaining this concept.

I'm wanting a zen type martial artist that is blind. The way i see it i've got a few options.;

1. Blind fighter with remote hacking skills.
2. Blind fighter rigger

The problem with option 1 is i know nothing bout hacking in the game. I mean nothing, no idea what stats to up or which are used for which skills. I don't have a clue on skills. Reading the text didn't help me much since i haven't dropped a single die on anything yet. So i'm not even sure if i would be useful as an unarmed fighter while being the teams only hacker. The idea behind this union was that i would be a primarily melee fighter that can level the playing field via hacking optics/lights/etc.

Option 2 seems more promising if i can find something bout how to start with drones (or do i, must i make them when the campaign starts). The idea of a blind man using drones to see while getting knee deep in it seems cool to me. If i went this route i would be the team "driver" as well... leaving it to auto pilot obviously. This option seemed more helpful to my team than the first.



The Gm has allowed us to use up to rarity 12 gear with 1 item above it. We are creating characters with 500bp (250 on stats, 50 gear). I was hoping to be an adept as well with blind fighting and perhaps attrib boost. I'm leaning towards human, dwarf or elf.... While i know trolls and orcs have better str i don't prefer to play one since they are not very tranquil looking. So basically i'm asking for help smoothing out the concept or perhaps advice from someone's past experience on such a character. Thanks in advance......

Hackers use skills. Technomancers use stats and Complex Forms, which are essentiall skills. Technomancers are esentially hackers who hack without hardware, using just their mind. You can not be an adept and a technomancer.

From a building the character perspective, making a hacker will be a lot cheaper than making a technomancer. Riggers are a subset of hackers now.

To buy drones, you just buy them with you tech points. You will need a decent comlink, some computer programs, and Control Rig Cyberware to rig with. Definately check out the Encephalon Cyberware. There is nothing wrong with being the blind driver, you just jack in and use the car/drone's sensors.

My technomancer was grown in a vat and spent her entire life in VR, so now she feels really awkward in the "Real" world, and tends to live in VR. She interacts with the world through a modified manservant droid whenever possible.

The hacking decking rules for this game are confusing. It seems that they were written by a teenager with ADD. They are great in depth rules, but they aren't laid out well, and there is so much detail that it is distracting. These games are supposed to abstract a certain amount of things so that you can focus on other things. All the new Matrix rules do is make you paranoid. You will need to read "The wired world" in the main rulebook and the Unwired sourcebook.

My opinion is go dwarf, but that is me.

I see


Here's where i'm getting confused...

In the Runner's Companion the negative quality for reduced(sense) it says being blind receives a -6 dice pool mod for all vision based tests. That's understandable and to compensate adept's blind fighting on page 175 in Street magic. This modifies my rolls to -4 instead of -6..... however in Arsenal page 158, the maneuver Blind Fighting stats melee combat is reduced from -6 to -3 instead. Are these cumulative?

Aide from that, i can't find any bioware/cyberware for ears/nose that would help counter being blind. Are they there and i'm just not seeing it or is this possible?

Given that Cybereyes cost like 1000y, why is your guy still blind?
I'm curious on the rational for him having 5k of implants, and another 60k of software, but not have gotten new eyes?

For an additional 5 BP (10 or 15 BP), the reduced sense is
the result of a neurological dysfunction—for instance a problem
with the occipital lobe of the brain—this renders the character
incapable of hearing sound directly, via organ replacement, and
through direct simsense stimuli. This type of sense reduction
cannot be repaired with surgery or gene therapy (though such
possibilities are open at the gamemaster’s discretion).

Page 108 of Runner Companion. I figure it would be a good story element the Gm can use. Figure he was injured by some corp and thrown out with the trash when they messed up. Or the corp wanted to erase their mistake and tried to kill him and his family off, yet they failed and he's out for revenge.

Okay Fair enough
Now here's the kicker

If this is true. How is he hacking/rigging? He can't use the sensors of the drones, nor can he feed the information directly into his mind.

And if it's not true. Then they could be replaced with cyber eyes.

See, that's what i'm talking bout. I didn't even see that. So the rigger/hacker concept with being blind is out. The team we have needs a hacker, pilot/rigger, and/or a face man. I would like to fit my blind man concept in there but i don't want to be bored. A blind face man is kinda unrealistic even in shadowrun terms. My friends are playing a healer/mage, spec ops, 2 street samurai.....

So there really is no way to get into the matrix without a visual simsense?

A Reality Filter that converts visual simsense into tactile simsense. Sort of an advanced braille converter. Hm, seems plausible.

You could get astral sense, then you could kinda see, and it'd be an advantage to a face.

He can still tune pianos.

Mesh

That reminds me, in Unwired one technomancer describes "seeing" the matrix as a complex melody which he can attune to. A TM's brain is adapted to the matrix and a blind person's brain adapts to perceiving the world with the remaining senses, sounds plausible that a blind TM intuitively perceives the matrix in a completely non-visual way.

Sensor Targeting + non visual perception tests.

There are non visual sensor tests

I was reading over unwired and saw the more than metahuman quality. It made me think that I could reinvent my blind rigger without drones but instead using a mech suit of types. Anyone ever played around with that concept before?

I've made a blind swords man before. It was a lot of fun. I'd recommend you go and make a blind adept face. Adepts can make really good faces, and with astral perception or deep weed, you'll be able to sense the world around you. This will also give you a bonus when it comes to being a face because you'll be able to tell the mood of the person you're talking to.

But if your GM is evil he might start to throw spirits at you who are only in astral space that can attack you and no one else, unless another character is in the astral with you. This would be a good way to balance you out if he deems you to be over powered. But you won't be able to drive at all/very well, because you can't see through wind shields/glass. So if your group needs a driver, its not going to be you.

At one point I was considering making a face character for the team i played but I am unsure the extended role such a character would play outside of negotiations. I don't want to sit on my butt during the mission and/or be a liability for my team in combat.

EVERYONE played one *g*. Ah well, not completely true. I had one fighting with a telescopic staff. (Which also has a reach bonus balancing your +2 for physical action while astraly perceiving modifier). In SR3 absolutly neccessary. Now in SR4 you just lose dice, so you can be nearly as good as anyone else, even while blind. Just can't read anything and has trouble seeing in thick flora or complete lifelessness... and to find small unimportant objects. But overall its a cool thing to do.

Yay for Zatoichi-like blind guys who can cut a way through dozens of people.

So this leads me to ask the question bout melee combat rolls. Normally to hit i would take agility+weapon skill correct? However with a blind toon would it be intuition+weapon skill? (p141 Core S4e Blindfire).
On top of that i see that Blind fighting as a adept power changes the -6 penalty to -4 instead..... while the blind fighting maneuvers (p158 Arsenal) says it's -3 instead of -6. Is that a typo??

Yeah, you roll int+skill if you're totally blind. But if you go the adept roll and astral perceive and fight, you're not really blind then, so you use the normal agi+skill.

I don't think that's a typo, fighting maneuvers are a lot more expensive then adept powers because you have to purchase a marshal art quality on top of the maneuver as well. It also takes longer to learn. So basically, because its harder to acquire its more powerful, or that's how I look at it.

So i made my character using Daegann's character generator. My Gm allows us to make toons with 500bp, 250 on attrib, and 50 on gear. We are all starting off with a Fixer, so i didn't include him. What do ya'll think?

name: Jinx
Human adept
Body-5
Agility-4
Reaction-5
Strength-5
Charisma-2
Intuition-7
Logic-3
Willpower-2

Edge-2
Magic-6
Initiative 18
Ess-5.075

Skills;
Athletics-1
Dodge-4
Unarmed-7 (specialized martial arts)
Perception-4 (specialized hearing)
Throwing weapons-4
first aid-4
infiltration-3

Knowledge;
english-n
japanese-1
hong kong triads-2
triad-2
yakuza-2
japanese corps-2

Qualities;
Adept
Apt Unarmed combat
Excep Att
Perception 2
Martial arts 4 (for maneuvers disarm, sweep, blind-fighting, finishing move,setup and riposte)
Martial arts 3 (for karate +1 to unarmed dv, boxing +2 to unarmed dv, muay thai +1 to unarmed dv)

Negative qualities;
Vendetta (+5bp)
Enemy 5 (+25bp)
Bad luck (+20bp)
Reduced sense (blind, in-correctable by cybernetics) (+15bp)

Cyberware/bioware
Internal air tank
Cyber ears
-ear recording
-sound link
-spatial recognizer
-select sound filter rate 4
-audio enhancement rate3
-damper
Hand Spurs
Enhance Articulation

Adept Powers
Combat sense lvl3
Improv Combat Ability (unarmed) lvl 5
Enhanced perception lvl 4

Gear
Hardliner gloves
shock gloves
chameleon suit
form fitting half body suit
ppp-system guards (shin,forearm, leg & arm)
various nades including cs tear gas, smoke, flash pak, flash bangs, splash, narcojet.... etc etc
10 throwing knives with quick holsters
Shock frills
commlink
misc items like subvocal mic, gecko gloves, medkits, fake sin......




So i'm guessing for much of the combat i'll be rolling unarmed+intuition. Not sure if i need perception checks before i try to hit, or how often. I'm thinking some house rules will be made just for this character which i'm hoping won't cause problems for my gm. Any gm's out there have suggestions?

The maximum bonus on unarmed DV through martial arts is +3 as far as I know. It's in some FAQ/Errata and I'm sure someone more knowlegable than I can tell you where exactly.

Logic and Willpower of 1?
REALLY?

I hate minmaxed munchkin characters.

Mmmmmmmanabolt?

i believe you are correct.. i'm make a change on that

Ya, well here's the thing. I have yet to get a response from my gm on how this character will roll for combat. If he plays it like i think he will (intuition+unarmed) then i'll be taking point from agility and placing them in the lower attrib. If dodge isn't going to be used (as i suspect) then i'll move those into face skills and up my charisma.

I'm attempting to make a min max character for my team, but i don't want to be bored so i was trying the blind fighter idea or being a face. Or both. The team i'm in has the need for damage.

1 Logic and 1 Willpower means you're dumber than the average troll.
Your character is /dumb/ AND easily manipulated.
He's like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

With a 1 Logic, I'd make you roll your Logic score to understand the team plan.
On a glitch, you get it fundementally wrong.
On a fail, you don't understand it.
on a success you can follow the actual plan.

The type of character that would trade five pennies for a dollar, having been told that higher numbers are better?

Eyah. Personally I have a very hard time having logic below a 3. If it starts below 3, I spend the karma to get it up there.

I see, ya gotta remember, this is my first character. I haven't played much of the game (less 8 hours of planning a job last saturday with practice roles). I've been playing with the gunslinger from the corebook. I updated the character a bit.