I got a related problem with a player in my campaign.

He wanted to play an Elf. A primitive Elf who only speak Japanese and a bit of english.
That is a Gremlins 4 and only use Katana weapon.
That is unaugmented nor Adept.

The first draw was a pathetic character who manage to get up to 8-10 dice in sword-fighting.
(I must confess this actual player is a bit on the not bright side, having to count slowly when adding 3d6 together and absolutely unable to make a calculation by hand right. I help understand the no-technologie aspect and bad character builds).

I rewrote the character as a competent Phys-Ads with emphasis on sword and agility/avoidance to reach HtH (16+ combat dice and several IP) that I think will at least be valid.

The first scenario, in the only fight he participated in his only action what trying to climb up a 7m tall vehicules pill up in a junkyard to get to the ennemy... While the bullets were already flying around. Obviously he not even manage to reach the top before the fight was over.

Next scenario, they were on a boat trying to reach a dock where friends were holding off ghouls. He try to jump to the dock from the boat missing wildly and going splash and no use at all.

Last scenario he manage to get some skill ranks in bow and buy a dismountable custom bow (note that he spared a lot of nuyen for it, seriously hindering group effort several time because he pretend not to have money to rent a van nor pay for explosives). The bow spent 90% of the scenario unmounted in his case, through at last 3 combats. He only think about mounting it up after large number of complain from other players and use it to guard a stage during a concert. Nuyens spent on the bow : 8000+, numbers of arrows shooted: none.

This guy is doomed to make very bad decisions. I asked him why he is playing such a character and he telling me that's because he is tired of playing a Brute/Munchkin/Grosbill in other game.

In the Other Game™, he played a Paladin that try to infiltrate into a bandit lair (and have no special feelings about the way my lawful-evil warlord apply quick and lethal "justice" to the "criminals" we met). At one time there was a brawl and he was to convince the guards the guys we were hitting really were the rogue. He just have a few word to tell the guard.

He spent some time in deep concentration (face reddening), the DM start to be impatient and ask him : "So , what do you say", the guys burst up, "Hey, be gentle with me, I have never do so much Roleplaying before !" we were all abashed, this guy is DMing since some years and I have it in my campaign for more than 2 years and he confess never to have roleplay before oO. Worse thing is that he look really panicked and sincere. After being given a few more minuts of intense reflexion he decide the Paladin will point out his opponent while saying simply "Thief" to the guard then proceed to keep on bashing him.

As a Gamemaster it hurt me a lot that all the time he spent playing my scenario he doesnt see that as Roleplaying especially as he have a decently played Orc Weaponsmith in Earthdawn with a bit of actual background and character social implication.

But, as you can say, he is not the sharpest spoon in the drawer.

Here is the Problem

The Team
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]
-Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]
-Vs. the Gang [1 IP]


1st Pass
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]: Shoots a Ganger
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]: Fries the Gang Leader
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]: Heads to Cover
-Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]: Charges the Gang Enforcer
-Gangers: Shoots at PCs

2nd Pass
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]: Shoots another Ganger
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]: Is out of Actions-
Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]: Continues to fight the Enforcer
-Gangers: Is out of Actions
3rd Pass
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]: Shoots another Ganger
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Gangers: Shoots at PCs: Is out of Actions
4th Pass
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]: Shoots another Ganger
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]: Is out of Actions
-Gangers: Shoots at PCs: Is out of Actions

How, exactly, is that a problem?

Oh no, the guy dedicated to going fast is going fast, and the folks who can't be bothered to pick up additional IPs...aren't?

So what?

Ok... Still not seeing the problem.

1) PR 0-1 enemies are going to be poor opposition for a 4 IP character anyways.

2) The adept may just have 2 IP because he wanted something else with his Power Points - that's his decision. Also, he's bound to be doing considerably more damage per hit than the sammy.

3) Dedicated faces won't do well in combat either - he should expect to be outshined in that arena. In the social arena, the street samurai will feel quite the same as the face takes stage center.

4) The shaman has the whoooole magic shtick going for them, and is only 5 karma from getting 4 IPs also.

The problem will not be with the characters, but the payers.
What does Bob [The Face] and Fred [The Shaman] do while Edgar [The Sam] and Jill [The Adept] kill off the gang by themselves, go get the Pizza?

This is ok for a while, but after the 4th or 5th fight Bob and Fred are going to get fustrated.

We ran into this with our Shaman and Mage, there responce was Increased Reflexes at Force 4 and Spirits to sustain them for the fight. Now the GM has to beef up his Gangs with either numbers or "Ringers" to compeat with the Runners.

Those other characters, especially the Shaman, get their time to shine. If they can't share the playing time with Billy Bob the Sam's one trick pony, then they're just bad players.

The game isn't always about you.

Besides, a good GM will have the gangers using cover and intelligent tactics to negate the samurai's ability to just annihilate the opposition in one pass.

Wires Reflexes is one of the pen-ultimate themes behind Cyberpunk/Shadowrun.
If you don't like it for some reason, or think it's not fair. Remove them from your game, as well as the spells that do the same thing.


The Shaman can summon spirits, the Shaman can be multi-casting spells.
The Face. Well, he's a face. Hopefully he has some combat, but if he doesn't? He's the one that specialized his char away from combat.
And that Streetsam with 4-5 essence worth of cyber to get to 4 IP? What does he do while the Face does his fast talking?

But are the Player ok with sitting there while one or two characters dominate the combat, if they are there is no problem. You should discuses this with them know. I have seen to many player get frustrated and quit the game because of this problem.

Flip a coin. A lot.

If they're not okay with sitting there twiddling their thumbs in combat, maybe the other players aren't okay with sitting their twiddling their thumbs while the Face negotiates, the Hacker works on electronics, or the Mage goes on the Astral. The spotlight's not always on you -- you don't always have the right skills for the job -- that's WHY Shadowrunners travel in packs.

If they don't like it, they can make a character with more combat skills, and/or buy more IPs.

All the combat skills in the world aren't going to give you something to do when the two combat monsters can clear out anything short of a platoon in the first initiative pass.

Wired Reflexes 1 is cheap in 4e. I think they had a bunch in the bargain bin the last time I checked. In 2072, that kind of surgery can be done on the weekends! Besides, your 4 pass Samurai doesn't really exist. I don't think I've ever seen a real player character sporting Wired 3, and I weep for the munchkin campaign where he exists.

Had a street same with Biocompatibility (Cyber) and I was able to score an alpha Move By Wire 3. Took almost all my savings and some time investments. I did a few free runs for the local crime lords which scored me enough favors that I called them all in at once for help in acquiring them. It's not that munchkiny at all considering the things that other characters can do in comparison.

Quick question, I skimmed most of this thread and got the jist of it but I was wondering whats the build of the rest of the group? Maybe you can help him fill a niche that hasn't been taken care of already to make him more useful.

Sorry, but MBW will always be munckin. Always. lol

Lol, ok maybe just a teeeeeny bit but damn it that dodge bonus is sexy and I will never say otherwise

Right up until the character commits suicide a few years later suffering from acute paranoia. I liked that they decided that the MBW system couldn't be turned off. It makes sense, from the standpoint that activating the system is probably pretty traumatic. But wow, trying to imagine living in that state all the time? You'd almost automatically have to install a sleep regulator or eventually your character would just fabricate an alter ego that plans to bring down all the banks with his underground society.

I've never made a mundane character without a sleep regulator and I think that after a few years of testing they would work out those issues hence why you don't read about any huge draw backs in the 2070's version. Anyways it's tech like this that helps make mundane characters able to stand toe to toe with awakened. They get all sorts of advantages that normal characters can't touch until you start using more advanced cyber to even the playing ground.

It won't be munchkiny when you develop TLE-x either. I know it's not in the fluff anymore but damnnit, I liked that facet of them.

And I say it's hard enough being mundane, I've invested a lot of money into implants to keep up with my awakened team mates and it's still an arms race. Screwing cyber characters even more would be like beating a dead horse with a ripped off cyber limb.

lets face it the fluff on Move By Wire makes no sense and is completely disturbing. Every muscle in your body in a constant state of seizures controlled by seizure suppression that gets activated along the right paths by your DNI? WHAT THE HELL? That's so painful in so many ways. I don't believe you could make the human body do that.

But MBW is very sweet. And its' one of the few things that you can get in 1 package that the Mage/Adept can't duplicate more cheaply.

I had a character with skillwires and wired reflexes, and then I realized he should just have mbw. The dodge bonus was just a nice addition.

Yeah, nothing about MBW or Skillwires makes sense, that much is true. It really is too bad the game went off the deep end with Awakened characters, which required the characters playing with cyber to create these monstrosities. I think that's why the idea of public Missions games doesn't appeal to me. The GM can't regulate the absurdity of the characters.

Our group has a few tweaks here and there to deal with that. Like the negative dice pool modifier to heal spells for when you have low essence applies to all mana spells, friendly or hostile, and spirits have inherent weaknesses that can be used by anyone with a good knowledge check so your mundane can stand up to one in a fight if he's trained too just like any other threat. We don't have Stick n Shocks beating ItNW like others do but specific weaknesses to attack them with instead. It's stuff like this that makes knowledge skills more useful in my group, in fact everyone has a few knowsofts to deal with paranormal threats because we run into them so much.

Actually, it's just as likely to go this way:
1st Pass
-Billy Bob the Street Sam [4 IP]: Shoots a Ganger
-Betty Luan the Shaman [1 IP]: Tosses an overcasted Stunball and knocks everyone out
-Mr. Smith the Face [1 IP]: Loots the bodies
-Super Kill the Martial Artist [2 IP]: Loots the bodies
-Gangers: Moan softly and bleed on the pavement

Meh,

Warn him about character versatility, let him play a combat monster if it's not disruptive.
There's no reason he can't drop karma on versatility later on or default on everything.

I'd be more concern because when your character is a hammer, all your runs turn into nails.

The problem here is not that the character is playing a combat-oriented character. The problem is that he is playing a very limited combat-oriented character. He is focused on unarmed combat, which is a niche role, with only one relatively low ranged skill to fall back on, and he lacks any other skills to speak of. Even his gear seems bare-bones.

This seems partly due to botched min-maxing (you can make badass characters who are also good at other things), and partly a problem with the player's personality (apparently his limited play style annoys the other players and doesn't mesh well with the game world's NPCs).

Talking to the player is the best option, but if his play style is limited, maybe the GM could work with it - if the guy wants to be cheap muscle, then let him be cheap muscle - the kind of thug that the other runners subcontract out for extra muscle and simple acts of violence.

So instead of keeping an easy knowledge skill and built-in mechanic, you dropped the -1/2 AP on electrical (and dare I guess all elemental attacks like white phosphorus grenades) attacks to implement a new involved house-rule mechanic.

And for the record, SnS does not beat ItNW, it simply reduces the effect of it. For example, with a SnS shot that has 1 success against a F8 spirit, the spirit still ignores it.

Nope, just didn't make sense to us that the electricity would cut the armor in half when it was a supernatural creature that had no tissue or nervous system to shock. Didn't change anything about it, just don't have it half that armor. Its worked fine so far, stick n shocks are no longer the only ammo we use like it used to be, spirits aren't any tougher, and a little extra fluff is nice explaining the culture based weaknesses.

my .02 Nuyen....

The OP has player problem, not a character/mechanical problem.

Is the character well-rounded? No. But the problem is that your player does not see this as a problem. And that is what is going to be your problem. Confused? Let me explain.

What you have is a character that is more often than not going to be a liability. Now this is fine as a concept as long as the player (and the other players) are aware of this. Maybe this the PC's first run. That they came from an underground pit-fighter style ring and hand to hand combat is all they know. Now they are thrust into the shadows and must try to survive and use what skills they have. They have to try and be useful.

Truth is that I could come up with dozens of concepts were this less than ideal character could work and contribute to a game. But all of them only work if the Player realizes that they are at a disadvantage and a possible liability. If they are accurately aware of this, then the odds are everything will work out fine. If the player is not aware of the problems and fails to consider them, well then you will have problems at your table.

In case anyone's curious as to how this worked out, the player revised his character a bit, taking a social adept power and some infiltration skills.

How's his mom feeling? Okay after the scuffle?