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Big Jim Slade
I'd like to get some opinions on this build
I created this occult investigator character using 500BP, my original idea was to have a blend of kolchak the nightstalker and harry callahan

CODE
Stats
human magician
B:3 A:4 R:3 S:3 C:4 I:4 L:4 W:4
E:2 M:4

Active skills
Athletics group:1
Conjuring group:3
Spellcasting:3
Counterspelling:3
Assensing:3
Dodge:2
Unarmed combat:3
Pistols:2
Stealth group:2
locksmith:1
Datasearch:3
Influence group:2
Perception:4
Pilot groundcraft:2

knowledge skills
security procedures:3
street drugs:3
magic trids:2
conspiracy theories:4
local area knowledge (seattle):3

Qualities
analytical mind
perceptive(1)
school of hard knocks
bad luck
day job (10 hours)
SINNER

Spells
Mind probe
imp invisibility
stunbolt
lightning bolt
magic fingers
detect life form ex. area

Gear
autopicker (4)
lockpick set
sequencer
maglock passkey (4)
keycard copier
glasses(4) w/
image link
low light
thermographic
flare compensation
earbuds(3)w/
audio enhancement(2)
select sound filter(1)
goggles(6) w/
image link
flare compensation
low light
thermographic
image mag
image enchance(3)
3 micro cameras
3 micro microphones
direction microphone
holo projector
laser microphone (3)
radio signal scanner (3)
tag eraser
20 stealth tags
flashlight
2 plasteel restraints
magical lodge materials (4)

Combat
lined coat w/
concealed holster
gel packs
chemical protection(4)
ruger super warhawk w/
barrel reduction
increased cylinder
personalized grip
custom look
firing selection change SA
50 rounds of normal and gel
25 silver bullets
5 speed loaders


sony emperor w/renraku ichi
command:1 edit:2 browse:2 analyze:2

also a mecury comet with gridlink, gridlink override

2 months low lifestyle

Contacts
bartender (L:1 C:2)
fixer (L:1 C:2)
beat cop (L:1 C:2)
talismonger (L:1 C:2)
street snitch (L:1 C:1)
blogger (L:1 C:3)

MortVent
You need better influence skills and intimidation (possibly specialize intimidation into interrogation) as an investigator. Unless you rely on mind probe for information, but nothing you get that way is admissable in courts (except Aztechnology corps... and they don't bother with outside investigators)

One thing to consider also is athletics and stealth groups, what skills do you need from there. If all you want in athletics is say running then it's better to just put 8 bp into running 2 vs 10 bp into athletics 1. But if in stealth you want disguise, shadowing and infiltration then the 10bp for a group makes sense.


Xenefungus
Consider using KarmaGen if you can. With a lot of low attributes and especially skills as you have, it really makes sense.
Stingray
You are missing one important quality:Magician.(15 BP) biggrin.gif
Ol' Scratch
I really like where you're going with him, right down to the snub-nosed revolver and choice of qualities (I love Bad Luck). If this is a 500 BP campaign, though, that implies that it may be a bit higher-power than your standard game. While all those low scores feel right, he may not fit in well with the game. You may wanna consider focusing him a bit so you can boost up some of your key traits.

I honestly don't know how you'd do that if he does come out at 500 BP, though, especially since I don't have access to any books for a few days. I mean, you pretty much covered all your bases, they're just kind of on the low side of things. Are you sure you did your math right? If so, I'm guessing the culprit is all the skills you have. Damn things cost a fortune in 4th Edition.

Solid concept and build though. smile.gif
Makki
-get Area Thought Recognition. Saves a lot of time, if you know instant, whom to ask.
-Try to push Assensing, it's cheaper in BP then later with karma ^^. Once you get Psychometry, this will be your i-know-everything-tool
-although i like the evenly spread attributes, i'd go for at least 9 dice at drain
-get edge 4+, after all your human, you need an edge over your team mates
czarcasm
I agree with what some of the other posters are saying: Your dice pools are rather low:

Etiquette, Negotiation, Con, Leadership (needed for persuasion): DP of 6 (Charisma 4 plus Influence 2). And you're defaulting on attempts to interrogate people because you lack the intimidate skill. Have you considered switching to a Charisma-linked tradition so that you don't have to have all four mental attributes be high? It would be nice to push Charisma to 5 because the opposition tends to have high DPs.

Slinging spells and summoning spirits: DP of 7 (Magic 4 plus spellcasting/conjuring 3). Because ritual spellcasting is better for an investigator-type character (I like doing rituals for mind probe and influence, or simply to track someone down), I'd get the full sorcery skill group. By contrast, banishing is pretty useless (especially at this low DP). So maybe drop the conjuring skill group and just get summoning and binding. Given how cheap it is using BP, I'd find a way to get a Power Focus 4 (with the restricted gear quality). That would beef up your DPs to a more respectable 11.

Drain: DP is 8 (Logic 4 plus WIllpower 4). As noted above, I'd suggest switching to a Charisma tradition and to bump Charisma to 5, giving you 9 drain dice. Alternatively, consider getting some ware -- Cerebral Booster 2 is pretty cheap and gets you two more drain dice. Trauma Damper also is nice for resisting drain -- for non-overcast spells, it's the equivalent of three extra drain dice. Another possibility is to get a Martial Arts quality so that you can buy the Focus Will manuever, for two more drain dice. Since your unarmed DP is pretty low already, and you'd likely get creamed in most hand-to-hand encounters, you could get the quality with an advantage of one more dice for blocking, as I imagine you'd be spending most of your time trying to back out of melee combat.

Noticing things: Assensing is DP 8 (Intuition 4 plus skill 3 and the quality perceptive), and Perception is DP 9 (same as with assensing except the skill is one higher). And if you're wearing your goggles, you get an extra three for visual perception and if you're wearing your ear buds you get an extra two for hearing tests. I'd consider putting the visual enhancement in your glasses rather than the goggles; you'll often be wearing the glasses but not the goggles, it's often when you're least prepared for the ambush or to notice the clue that you need a high perception pool.

Contacts: You've got lots of low-value contacts. I'd consider consolidating them into a few high-quality contacts. Often you need every last die, especially when your etiquette DP is not that high.

You don't have the hardware skill, so isn't your sequencer useless? I'm not sure that you need to spend a point in lockpicking -- your agility and the autopicker give you a decent pool. You've also got a lot of BP invested in datasearch but a really low Browse program.

Magic: Analyze truth would be another good spell for you, if you can find room for it. I bet physical mask would be better than invisibility for a face-type character like yourself. Also can you do a tradition with guidance spirits? I see divination as being very useful for you.

I really second a lot of the advice that you've been given: Try to drop or pare way back on some of the non-critical skills (like pistols, athletics, ground vehicles, etc.).
Glyph
QUOTE (Makki @ Jul 10 2010, 10:34 AM) *
-get edge 4+, after all your human, you need an edge over your team mates

Edge of 4+ is normally a good idea, but not with the Bad Luck quality.

I noticed you only have 15 points of Knowledge skills listed. With Intuition: 4 and Logic: 4, you get 24 points of free knowledge skills.

Ol' Scratch hit the main potential problem. Power level. The character is very well-crafted and self-consistent, and even the raw stats have a nice "organic" feel. But this is definitely a lower-powered character. He would be a great NPC if a group of runners ever met a hardbitten, hard-luck occult investigator. But I don't know if he is effective enough to function in a group of 500 point runners. Do you have any idea of the sorts of characters the other players tend to play?
Ol' Scratch
A low Edge with Bad Luck is boring and pointless. Boo on that.
Big Jim Slade
I ran into problems with trying improve my skills, the cost is just too high when some of the other ones are really useful to have

as for intimidation the character gets +1 with the super warhawk due to custom look, I don't really plan to put much more into that because I'd rather rely on notoriety and the gun

btw I created this character with damien knight's character generator and as far as I can tell it's 500BP

QUOTE (Ol' Scratch @ Jul 10 2010, 04:14 PM) *
A low Edge with Bad Luck is boring and pointless. Boo on that.

wouldn't that make it an even bigger disadvantage?
Ol' Scratch
No. It makes you lame for trying to ignore your disadvantage by ignoring Edge. <shakes fist>

Bad Luck only has a 1/6 chance of kicking in at any given point, and when it does all it does is reverse what you were going to do with the Edge to begin with. Unless you regularly use your Edge in situations where you don't need the boost to succeed, what the Hell harm is there in using it with or without Bad Luck? Bad Luck doesn't make Edge completely worthless or even a liability. It just means that 1/6th of the time you can't use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Oh heavens.

And best of all, when it does work, you get a bit of a laugh at the silly antics that may ensue.
Saint Sithney
Gear:
The long coat + Gel Packs puts your armor into encumbrence territory. I'd drop the gel packs as they're expensive and what's driving you over your armor limit.
I don't know what your starting availability rules are since it's 500bp, but your goggles have too many doodads in them to be 12 avail.
I'm pretty sure the Gridlink Override mod includes Gridlink if not, i doubt your GM really cares enough to focus on downtown traffic in the 6th world.

Getting more bang for your BP:
Your physical stats are a bit too high for a mage. I'd drop Agility, Reaction and Strength each by 1 point and then pick up the Increase Attribute spells and some sustaining Foci. It takes a weird guy to keep fit when all he has to do is focus his mind and *poof* he's twice as strong, quick and agile.

Also, since this is a high-point game, is your GM letting you take levels of Initiation to start? If yes, you might want to jump into the metamagic pool right away. If you're stalking magikers, being able to disguise your aura is choice.
Ryu
For efficiency I would either choose elf, and go for a charisma-tradition and social skills, or ork, and play on the roughness of the character. The attribute shuffle depends on your race decision. For humans I would consider
B:4 A:2(4) R:2 S:3 C:5 I:4 L:5(7) W:3
E:2 M:5(4)

250 BP. Augmentation would be Trauma Damper and Cerebral Booster II, plus Muscle Toner II.

While I see a reason for all of your skill choices, there is also ingame utility. I would cut locksmith - one more die on that isnīt worth it.
Pilot Ground Craft falls into the same category, with just a skill of 2 you can not drive much. The rules favour samurai driving manually and riggers.
You should try to avoid situations where 2 dice more are worth an IP on avoiding attacks. Dodge 2 is not enough benefit or too much investment - consider Athletics 2 and Gymnastics Dodge.

Mentor spirits are too good and fun to pass up.


Else, a very good character concept. That karmagen is so much kinder to this kind of build is the reason I prefer it.
czarcasm
How's this for an alternative build? Assuming my math is correct, the build gives you spellcasting and summoning/binding dice pool of 11, a drain pool of 10 (12 if you can spend a complex action to focus will first, and a trauma damper to boot), social skill pool of 10 before any modifiers, and slightly improved pools to dodge bullets and block melee attacks. You also get 12 dice for assensing/perception before any modifiers for gear. And your agent can do datasearches for you with 8 dice, which I think is one more die than in the OP's build. You may not like the switch to in background to being from Hong Kong. But I kept the original choice of metatype.

One downside of this build, however, is that you only have 5 dice (before modifiers for gear/etc) to shoot and sneak. And the mentor spirit I suggested to boost your assensing/perception DPs subtracts a die from physical damage resistance tests. I'm no Glyph/Crusher Bob/Frank Trollman or the other character-generation wizards.

Race: 0
Attributes: 240
Qualities: -3
Active Skills: 172
Knowledge/Language Skills: 0
Foci/Spells: 22
Resources: 50 (18 ware, 20 foci, 12 other gear)
Contacts: 19


Race: Human, 0 BPs

Attributes: 240 BPs
B: 3, Str: 2, Ag: 2, Rea: 3, Int: 5, Log: 4/6, Will: 4, Ch: 5, Edg: 2, Mag: 5/4

Positive Qualities: 32 BPs
Magician (Wuxing tradition)
Mentor Spirit: Jade Emperor (Dark King)
Restricted Gear: Power Focus 4
Martial Arts: Kung Fu (advantage: +1 to melee block)
Maneuver: Focus Will

Negative Qualities: -35 BPs
Sinner
Day Job (10-point version)
Bad Luck

Active Skills: 172
Sorcery skill group: 3
Summoning: 3
Binding: 3
Influence skill group: 3
Intimidate: 3
Assensing: 5
Perception: 5
Dodge: 2 (+2 ranged)
Unarmed: 1 (+2 block)
Pistols: 1 (+2 big scary revolvers)
Infiltrate: 1 (+2 urban)
Shadowing: 2

Knowledge/Language skills: 0 BP (not sure if the cerebral boosters give you extra free knowledge skill points, so will assume they don't and you have 27 rather than 33 points)
Chinese: N
English: 5
Japanese: 2
Magic Background: 3
Underworld Politics: 4
Hong Kong: 3
Seattle Area Knowledge: 3
Street Drugs: 3
Gang Identification: 2
Shadowrunner haunts: 2

Ware: 90K nuyen (18 BP)
Cerebral booster: 2
Trauma Damper
Tailored Pheromones: 2
(May want to consider dropping the TP down to rating 1 and instead picking up rating 3 cybereyes or rating 2 cybereyes and a datajack)

Spells: 18 BP
Stunbolt
Mind Probe
Analyze Truth
Heal
Physical Mask
Magic Fingers
(your guidance spirits can give you influence and your plant spirits can give you concealment to help replace invisibility)

Foci binding: 4 BP
Power Focus 4

Gear: 160K (32 BP)
Powerfocus 4 (100K)
Hermes Ikon commlink with Novatech Navi, Agent 4, Browse 4, plus other programs for agent to use (approx 20K)
25K in other gear and lifestyle

Contacts: 19 BP
Lone Star Vice Detective: 3/4
Seattle U Occult Researcher: 3/3
Club Owner: 3/3

Udoshi
Swap Bad Luck for Sensitive System - its free lunch as a mage, and doesn't affect bioware. Pick up another 5 point quality to make up for it, and pump your edge. You won't regret it.

Also, I have to second Ryu - you'll have better luck in karmagen, if its allowed for your game.
Saint Sithney
If you're going to get ware, just take a restricted gear quality and get a Pain Editor already.

Besides, nothing says 'Hard Boiled' like a Pain Editor.
toturi
QUOTE (Ol' Scratch @ Jul 11 2010, 05:08 AM) *
No. It makes you lame for trying to ignore your disadvantage by ignoring Edge. <shakes fist>

Bad Luck only has a 1/6 chance of kicking in at any given point, and when it does all it does is reverse what you were going to do with the Edge to begin with. Unless you regularly use your Edge in situations where you don't need the boost to succeed, what the Hell harm is there in using it with or without Bad Luck? Bad Luck doesn't make Edge completely worthless or even a liability. It just means that 1/6th of the time you can't use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Oh heavens.

And best of all, when it does work, you get a bit of a laugh at the silly antics that may ensue.

I think it makes you stupid for not trying to make irrelevant your disadvantage by ignoring Edge. The higher the Edge, the worse the Bad Luck. It just means that the one time you need to stay alive, you do not. Oh hell.
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (toturi @ Jul 10 2010, 11:24 PM) *
I think it makes you stupid for not trying to make irrelevant your disadvantage by ignoring Edge. The higher the Edge, the worse the Bad Luck. It just means that the one time you need to stay alive, you do not. Oh hell.

As opposed to needing the Edge and not having any to use at all? Logic 1, You 0.

Personally, I can't stand it when people take qualities that they fully intend to ignore. Such as:
QUOTE
Swap Bad Luck for Sensitive System - its free lunch as a mage, and doesn't affect bioware.

It's just flat out sad and borderline cheating in my opinion. Especially when it's not something drastically deadly like friggin' Bad Luck. Oh no! You may actually fail on occasion when using Edge! The horror!
Glyph
Sensitive system doesn't bother me that much, from a GM POV. It is one of those qualities that curtails a possible avenue of character progression, and there is enough useful cyberware out there that it is a meaningful negative quality, even for an awakened character.

If a character takes this quality and never gets cyberware, then it is even more of a disadvantage, just like the person with Bad Luck who never spends Edge (and thus never gets the 5 out of 6 times that it will work just fine).
Laodicea
QUOTE (Glyph @ Jul 11 2010, 12:13 AM) *
Sensitive system doesn't bother me that much, from a GM POV. It is one of those qualities that curtails a possible avenue of character progression, and there is enough useful cyberware out there that it is a meaningful negative quality, even for an awakened character.

If a character takes this quality and never gets cyberware, then it is even more of a disadvantage, just like the person with Bad Luck who never spends Edge (and thus never gets the 5 out of 6 times that it will work just fine).



Also good fun when the character gets a hand blown off and they want a cyberhand to replace it.
Makki
QUOTE (Laodicea @ Jul 11 2010, 10:29 AM) *
Also good fun when the character gets a hand blown off and they want a cyberhand to replace it.


which is inevitable with just edge 2 grinbig.gif
toturi
QUOTE (Ol' Scratch @ Jul 11 2010, 01:41 PM) *
As opposed to needing the Edge and not having any to use at all? Logic 1, You 0.

It's just flat out sad and borderline cheating in my opinion. Especially when it's not something drastically deadly like friggin' Bad Luck. Oh no! You may actually fail on occasion when using Edge! The horror!

The resources you would have put into Edge can be used to make sure you do not need it as much. Logic 1, You 0.

That is simply good sense in my opinion. Especially since it is something drastically better for the character than Bad Luck. Indeed you should try not to fail at all when using Edge.
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