The problem is scaling... and being fair about it across the board... it is way too arbitrary of a point of contention...

I think most of SR is very "arbitrary". The whole RAW vs. RAI (again). To some, this rule seems fairly clear-cut. To others, it doesn't.

The rules, as always, are going to have to be interpreted amongst the group playing SR. Hopefully the group and GM are able to reach a satisfactory decision.

As I said earlier, the only danger is defining 'ultra-secure' as too *high*, not too low. If anything, the character will get to use his Neo's too much. So why are people whining?

And even if the book said 'no stress of any kind, not even normal hacking' (once again, it doesn't say that), that would *still* be fine. It would be a significant bonus that you can't get during combat/etc. Heaven forbid an item like that exist, right? You're not forced to buy it. It's not necessarily for you.

Just refining Karoline's argument a bit... I do understand the dillemma... and it is a good one.
You really want those bonuses, and when you most need them, they disappear... Sucks. One of the reasons I (as a Character) do not get such things. I tend to prefer reliable 7 days a week and twice on Sundays bonuses over the on again off again bonuses of capricious situational 'ware. Even if it results in me having a few less dice for those less than stressful siuations.

I see. Another question about your build, if I may, what is Restricted Gear allowing me to buy?

*shrug* It depends on your perspective. If you think those 3 dice are 'your' dice, and the GM is taking them away from you, then you might whine. On the other hand, you could consider your 'base' DP to be the real one, and hey wow!, you also get a little bonus when you're safe and focused. It'd be your own fault for 'counting on' those dice in the first place, and kind of a shame if you couldn't appreciate the *extra* dice in many situations. See?

Anyway, as we're talking about a *combat* hacker, it's unlikely that the important factor is 'is it ultra-secure?', because you'd already be in a stressful, distracting combat situation.

I took it to be able to upgrade Response to 6, which lets System and Utilities run at 6.

Okay, so this is what I have so far:

Metatype: Ork (20BP) (400-20=380BP)

Stats: 210BP
Body: 7/9 (30BP)
Agility: 5/6 (40BP)
Reaction: 5/6 (40BP)
Strength: 3/8 (0BP)
Charisma: 2/5 (10BP)
Intuition: 4/6 (30BP)
Logic: 4/5 (30BP)
Willpower: 3/6 (20BP)
Edge: 2/6 (10BP)

I'm feeling quite strapped for BP already though, spending the full 200 (plus 10 for another point of Edge) as I am. Where can I afford to make cuts so I can pay for skills + contacts + gear? I also want to take Biocompatibility and Genetic Heritage for PuSHeD, and maybe Restricted Gear, if I can fit them all in.

Also, as far as negative qualities go, how much of a trap is SINner?

And forgive me for taking so long in building him, but he's my first and I don't want to screw up.

That's not a dilemma. That's just a situational modifier being, well, situational. It kinda sucks that wound penalties make you worse when you're trying to avoid dying, but, well, there it is. When you toss in the fact that many logic skills are those typically used in downtime, it makes it very hard for me to see what the big deal is. If you go with a rating 2 nanohive loaded cyberfoot you're talking about 8 BP for 3 dice in a decent variety of tests and still have room for another nanite colony. It ain't perfect, but that's still a hell of a deal. Not everything is going to be as cost efficient as a smart link.

PuSHeD is pretty cheap and small already. Just buy it. Or get it later. I often feel like Restricted Gear and things like that sacrifice a ton just to be perfect 'out of the box'.

Lets see, first off I suggest not getting genetic heritage for PuSHeD. It costs 10 BP and only saves you 3 BP worth of resources. As for where to shave BP, it is generally best to spend the max 200 BP on stats for the simple reason that stats apply to more things than skills do.

For instance, spending 10 BP on a point of agility gets you +1 to melee combat, firearms, stealth, and a couple other things. For 10 BP in skills you could get the firearms group which would give you a +1 to firearms only.

The short and long of it is that you're better off getting stats than skills in general. Also, skills are cheaper to raise in game than stats, so best to spend your BP on high ticket stats and then spend your karma on cheaper skills. This thought is amplified even more if you eventually plan on getting MbW and using skillsofts.

Biocompatability is a good idea, though points are tight. Consider dropping edge all the way down to 1. It kind of sucks to have it so low, but it isn't that much worse than 2, and it means you can raise it for only 10 karma, which isn't bad considering it is saving you 10 BP.

Oh, and I don't think anyone ever answered you earlier, but for this build you should likely get the compatability for cyberware. As long as you get 3 points of essence or more of cyberware, it'll pay off better than the bioware version. And MbW 2 is 3 points all by itself.

No real point in getting restricted gear for this build. You don't really have the spare resources to make use of it, or the spare BP to burn on it.

SINner is... well, it largely depends on your GM, but it isn't that big of a trap, because you'll be using fake SINs just like all of your SINless friends, and you aren't really any more screwed for doing something illegal with a SIN than without a SIN. Actually, you're likely to be in a slightly better situation if you're caught.

Ok, so if I drop Restricted Gear and Genetic Heritage, that's 15BP opened back up, which is good. What negative qualities can I pick up, which won't make my character unplayable. I'm planning on SINner, maybe Allergy, what else would be good? I want to take the full 35 points worth, I need the BP.

Heh. Well, if you're going The Full Munchkin, take In Debt 30 and Mild Addiction (Betel) 5. I won't bother you with the usual spiel about how NQs are for rounding out your character, not just for extra BP.

Munchkins break the rules. In Debt and Mild Addiction (Betel) are perfectly legal by the rules.

Real NQs?

I like Codeblock, stick it on something that's not critical but would be nice to have. Think Spoof (you can probably hack anything you'd spoof but it's still hurts, Command if you don't want a fleet of drones).

Scorched can really hurt but a really sneaky build can get around it.

Dependents make great background.

Media Junkie for the right character, although I prefer talking with the GM for Video Game Junkie instead of Media. More realistic and funnier.

Eh, in that context the Full Munchkin was meant as a joke anyway. Besides, by many people's standards munchkinhood is really more about attitude than method. It's about Winning Shadowrun and not caring whose toes you need to step on to get there. I've known munchkin type players who weren't really any better to play with even when they had a legal sheet. They were still rules lawyering twerps who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into playing a sheet that fit the table environment.

I get the idea that Yerameyahu was using the term munchkin in a joking manner and not trying to denigrate WhiskeyJohnny's playing style. But it is precisely that many people do not make a distinction between munchkins (those who break the rules) and powergamers/min-maxers (those who do not), that I made my statement. Munchkins cannot be dragged into playing a sheet that fit the table environment, that's why they are munchkins.

WhiskeyJohnny is making his first character right now. He's looking to optimize, to push the borders of munchkinism I do believe.

Not really, I just want to make a character who is good at what I want him to do (in this case, Combat and Hacking) and avoid any negative qualities that would make him unplayable. I didn't mean to give the impression that I was looking for NQs that wouldn't affect my character, or would only have minimal effect. I would like to have some that can drive character conflict but won't demand the spotlight 24/7, and won't actively make him worse at what I want him to do.

In fairness, I *do* find toturi's definition a bit idiosyncratic. For me, munchkin has no implication on rule-breaking, but instead more like 'game breaking'. But yes, it was a joke.

I figured as much.

I just got back from class, so hopefully I'll be able to give you all a preliminary skill list in a little bit.

Also, I've decided on my Negative Qualities (please let me know if you think any are bad choices, and why):
Dependent (10BP) - His baby sister who's attending Uni in Denver (where the game is set)
SINner (5BP) - The family are legal immigrants from Russia
In Debt (I'm not sure how many BP, but at least 10) - Borrowed money from the Vory

Is there a Negative Quality that would allow me to owe the Vory something other than money (i.e. a job)? I asked my GM if I could use Wanted to symbolize that, as it would give him an excellent reason to be in Denver (which I currently lack), but I'm not sure the GM will go for it.

On second thought, I'm just going to go with In Debt at 20BP.

Ok, so this is Akim Nevsky (the character) so far:


Metatype: Ork (20BP) (400-20=380BP)

Stats: 210BP
Body: 7/9 (30BP)
Agility: 5/6 (40BP)
Reaction: 5/6 (40BP)
Strength: 3/8 (0BP)
Charisma: 2/5 (10BP)
Intuition: 4/6 (30BP)
Logic: 4/5 (30BP)
Willpower: 3/6 (20BP)
Edge: 2/6 (10BP)
Essence: 6
Initiative: 9/12

Qualities:
Biocompatibility (10BP)
Dependent (+10BP) Yelena (his baby sister) lives with Akim and goes to University in Denver (where the campaign is set).
In Debt (+20BP) to the Vory.
SINner (+5BP)

Skills:
Active Skills:
Automatics 6 (24BP)
Perception 4 (16BP)
Gymnastics 4 (16BP)
Influence 2 (20BP)
Artisan 2 (8BP)
Computer 4 (16BP)
Cracking 4 (40BP)

How do the skills look? I've got 55BP left to play with. I don't think I need Contacts (for fluff reasons) and with 20,000 coming from In Debt, what should I buy? I want to have Cybereyes and two partial Cyberlegs - how should I spec these out?

So after attributes you have 170 points - 10 for biocompat + 35 for negs = 195 points. Then you have 140 in skills, bring you to 55 points. Thats 55 points for gear + 5 points for contacts probably. I like it. You're character is going to be pretty solid out of the gate. Any clue how you're gonna spend the gear points?

Nope. As I said, I want to have Cybereyes and two partial Cyberlegs (backstory: Leukemia took them when he was 14) but I'm not sure how to spec them out. I'd also like to have a nice commlink and good programs, as I'm a hacker, and Wired Reflexes 2, but other than that I don't know what to spend it on. If I can get away with it, I'd like to spend less than the full 50BP worth, so I might be able to squeeze a little more Edge in, or Human Looking/Bilingual, but if I can't it won't be too big an issue.

Really depends on what exactly you want to do for the legs. I'm always a fan of hydraulic jacks.

As for the eyes, may want to consider goggles, but some good mods include low light, thermographic, vision enhancement, vision magnification, smartlink, and maybe flare comp are all good.

Monkey feet, too!

I agree with Karoline, between googles, contacts, and a helmet, you can cover all the vision enhancements you need. Cyber eyes aren't really all that worth it...in my opinion.

I'll work something up for you gear.

Those eyes sound about right, as far as I was thinking. For the legs, I was also thinking hydraulic jacks (hence having two partial cyberlimbs, instead of just the foot in your build) and a nanohive (for those neo-corticals, as my GM is open to the composure test to use them in stressful situations, and because I intend to do a lot of pre-run hacking, in which they'd be useful). I would be interested in using them in a way similar to that cyberlimbed build (not necessarily a bad build, just not what I'm looking for, mind you) posted earlier, to get good armor and augmented stats, but I'm not sure how all that works. Care to enlighten me?




I was thinking cybereyes for flavor and backstory reasons, really, but I'm open to going the goggles and contacts route.

Main reason for the goggles over cybereyes is it saves you essence and nuyen, but story trumps that

Well, first thing you can do is the armor. You can start out with rating 2 armor on each limb, which would give you a total bonus of +4/+4 to your armor. It would take up 4 of your capacity though, and that'll run out quickly with partial limbs.

For the stats, in augmentation are the rules for customized cyberlimbs. Fairly simply you pay 1500 nuyen and have a +1 availability on the limb for each stat over 3 bod/3 agi/3 str. The trouble is that you have to average it with the rest of your body in most cases (and your body counts 3 times, once for each arm, and once for torso) so it'll be very difficult for them to help you out since you already have high stats. This is compounded by the fact that you're talking partial legs, which means you won't generally be able to take advantage of the limbs on their own like you could for arms when aiming a gun.

*Partial* limbs don't even average their stats at all, except when they're directly involved.

Oh, really? Forgot that. Well, that's actually a bit of a blessing, because it means he doesn't have to waste a couple tens of thousands just bringing the partial limb stats up to match his natural stats.

AFAIK. Based on this: "The attributes of partial limbs (including cyberhands and –feet) may be enhanced, but their attributes only apply for tests directly involving those limbs (such as a Strength Test when gripping something with an enhanced cyberhand)."

Yep, you got it right.

Yeah, we've sort of hit this weird point where I think cybereyes make the most sense for Magicians and Mystic Adepts who want to have decent Perception pools and avoid casting penalties without necessarily having to spend many bps on the Perception skill. Crazy.

You are correct, because we debated this a while back and there is no actual ruling staying they average per limb or not. So one would assume they are just the meat score. Anyway, there are pro's and con's to full leg or partial leg replacement. You might be better off with partial leg replacement since you won't have to blow cash on improving the attributes. You can stack armor, nanohive and hydraulic jacks.

Would that +4/+4 count towards my total armor, or just when the legs are targeted? And would I still be able to get things like Bone Lacing, Orthoskin, Enhanced Articulation, and suchlike?

That's what happens when the game increases the technology of the secondary enhancements (goggles, contacts, etc) and not the actual cyber enhancement. Personally I figure that the enhancements being built into an actual eye would have significant advantages over goggles/contacts with similar enhancements, regardless of the tech level.

If you went partial legs, for 47,525 nuyen and .78 essense you could get two modular obivous lower legs, both used alpha for less essense loss (not much but helps) with the following:

left lower leg - nanohive 2, armor 2, h. jacks 6
right lower leg - armor 2, h. jacks 6, cybergland (takes up 0 space), data jack, and orientation system (+2 bonus to navigation)

Gives you 4/4 armor, which stacks with any other armor you take, +2 to navigation tests, and +12 to jumping tests, with 240% increase in jump range.

This also gives you the ability to swap out lower limbs later, for skimmers, raptors, or whatever.

They do, you can't be disarmed of them. Or well it takes a significant amount of effort to remove cybereyes as opposed to removing goggles. If you are surprised, you still have your cybereyes on you, you might not have your goggles or glasses.

Oh crap, just saw this. You might want to increase willpower, since that is your defensive attribute for stun damage and in the matrix. Probably drop reaction and intutition one each to get will to 5.

Those are mild advantages at best. 99 times out of 99 a person isn't going to waste their action disarming you of your goggles. You might not be wearing them when surprised, but you also might be wearing them, especially if it is contacts/glasses instead of goggles. And even if you aren't wearing them, you put them on. If I had $2,000 goggles/glasses to give me superhuman vision, you can bet I'd never not have them on me, and rarely not be wearing them.

Willpower 3 should be enough. He has to prioritize stats, and willpower is basically only used to resist damage from DS and BH/BO. Given the build, he is likely to be hacking in AR, which means he never suffers those, which make a high willpower pointless, and even if he does go VR, spending 20 BP to raise it to 5 isn't even going to take off a full box of damage on average per test. He'd be much better off investing in a good biofeedback filter than burning a bunch of BP on willpower.

Yeah, I suppose. Don't see much value in Intuition with this build, but the will helps against magic as well, which is always nice.

Anyway, I'd recommend trying to take as much from Karoline's original build as you can. First buy all your programs and commlink. Then buy what you can in the 'wares department. If you want to skimp on cost for some of the biowares, you can get used standard grade stuff, half price for a bit more essence, but since it's halved because you'll have more cyber, its not that bad of a trade off. Priority 'wares woudl be as follows: the partial legs, PuSHeD, Encephelon I (probably used standard to reduce cost), muscle toner 2, wired reflexes II (think about getting just lvl 1 and upgrading later), a couple skill recorders, platelet factories, sleep reg, and then if you have any leftovers cash you might need a gun or two and some body armor.

Alot of the ware that can be used in my build already is. Most of the ones that weren't was for consideration about the cost:essence ratio. Wired reflexes for example would have saved only 16k, but cost .6 essence, and the build was already pushed to 5.875 or so essence used.

Also, I suggest not using the used alpha route at all unless you want your GM to smack you, as he/she rightly should for exploiting that erroneous oversight.

What's the erroneous oversight of Alphaware? My GM isn't anathema to me using it, but I'm wondering what the issue is.

Nothing wrong with Alphaware.

Used Alphaware on the other hand is basically the same as standardware for cost purposes, both nuyen and essence.

Edit: Depending on how you apply the multipliers, it could be 0.96 of the essence cost of standardware at the same price as standardware, which is probably the exploit Karoline is referring to.

Well, if you apply the multipliers like the book says that you are supposed to apply the modifiers, it is a an essence reduction for nothing. And yes, this is what I was talking about. Plain old alphaware is just fine. Used alphaware is just the stupidest thing ever, and so I always treat used as its own grade.

Ah, I see. Well, I'd rather not go that route if I can afford it. And I may not be able to get PuSHeD at chargen, due to the GM's rules on geneware's relative rarity. Is there something else I could fit that would serve similar purpose?

Nope....PuSHeD and Encephelon are the only two that give you that type of bonus. Or well adept magic powers can give you bonuses too.

Ok, I'll ask him about it then. I've got a question about the modular Cyberlegs - do I need them at this stage? They seem to add expense when I could just upgrade to them later on. Is there any immediate benefit, and would that be worth the (marginally) increased cost?