First, I'd like to thank you all for your help with my combat hacker. He's easily one of the most fun characters I've ever played. But, in his backstory, he has a pair of sisters, one of whom lives with him (he took the Dependent Negative Quality). My GM has asked that I stat out the younger sister, just in case.

I'd like to make her an Adept who Dual Wields Pistols, and despite Orks being better, she must be Human. In addition to the stricture that she must be human, she must be able to speak Russian and English Fluently (or at least Russian, but her English must be good enough to run), she should be able to use guns in melee (either as clubs or with bayonets attached), and she must be able to both survive and be victorious in a fight with a 400 BP Giant Street Sam with a Ballistic/Impact armor of 30+.

So, Dumpshock, do you think this is doable for 300 BP?

Also, a little Backstory on the character, if you wish:

Definitely be easier to not dual wield since you're probably sacrificing attack dice. To keep her survivable, gymnastics 4 + synthacardium 3 + reaction 4 + improved physical skill 2 = 13 gymnastic dodge dice. If you hyperspecialize her, she's going to only have combat skills. I'd recommend lower-ish magic, maybe 4, reduced to 3 due to 'wares.

Yeah, that's probably true. Though doesn't the Adept Improved Guns Skill or whatever it is apply to both guns, instead of getting split? Would that be a way of keeping my dice pools up while dual wielding? Is there any advantage to dual wielding, other than looking cool?

Oh, and would this character be more doable with 350 or 400 BP to spend? I don't know the first thing about Adepts, so she will serve as a bit of a primer for me.

From my archives...:

Tweak where needed. Maybe drop some skills a point or two, maybe a stat by one or two, ect. Most of the BP for cash can be removed.

EDIT: You can cut Armorer and Pilot Ground Craft completely (24); Agi, Rea, Ed by 1 each (30); lose a point of Krav (5); and I'm not sure how many points of money and you're almost done. Maybe drop a couple points off some other skills or stats.

Ok, cool. I'll look this over, see what tweaks need to be made. Also, this build isn't an Adept, so maybe some Adept Abilities can be added (in place of the 107,000 nuyen).

The reason it wasn't an Adept is because he's Genetweaked. I figured the geneware would be actually more beneficial and it would not be a MagicRun Character. Most characters I've ever seen are Magician/(Mystic) Adept.

EDIT: But yea, I gracefully empart 'pon thee mine most favoured character build; an' all the peasants say 'Yea.'

Does being Genetweaked make being an Adept an impossibility? I thought geneware just took away essence, like any other 'ware.

And I doth appreciate thine most favoured character build, for it shalt help me greatly in mine quest.

Her being a virtual mini-runner seems to be in a bit of contrast to being a 'dependent', though I suppose not necessarily. Just potentially a bit odd.

Oh well. I should start by pointing out that adept improved ability adds before the split for using two weapons because it is a direct modification to the skill itself. Very little adds after the split, but alot of stuff gets taken away after the split (Visibility modifiers, wound modifiers, range modifiers, etc). Now, that said, she is young and not a real runner and everyone has to start somewhere. She might dual wield more because she is training at it and/or thinks it looks cool than because she can actually hit anything outside a shooting range environment.

You know I'm just waiting to unleash the build variant I have of this as a troll dual-wielding sniper rifles. Model-121's with APDS rounds...

Yeah, but she's also a full time student. She doesn't run yet, but the skills to survive have been drilled into her from a young age (those crazy runner parents, you know the type). She lives with her brother and he pays for her living costs, hence, she is his dependent. She's rather independent for a dependent, but she's still his baby sister.

If dual wielding isn't effective generally, I'm willing to drop it as a requirement. I see the strong possibility of her fighting the party's Giant Street Sam, so I need her to be able to deal with him, if need be.



What?

Why?

Why would you do such a thing?
...And do they make APDS rounds in pistol calibers?

No no no, dual wielding done right is thus: using a melee hardened pistol in each hand in conjunction with the Two Weapon Style maneuver and Riposte. Shooting with both guns at once is just stupid unless you build for it, and even then isn't as good as the alternative.

(also: Go Go Typing With One Hand While Eating!)

Where are these Two Weapon Style and Riposte maneuvers? And could I Riposte by shooting them point blank in the face?

Page 160, Arsenal. And yes, yes you can. In fact, I have those dicepools listed at the end of the sample character I posted.

Cool. And I would split those dice pools if using two weapons? Is there a guide to effective dual wielding somewhere?

Getting through the Sam's 30 odd armor is going to be the problem. If you can get away with long bursts rather than full bursts then taking 2 fully recoil comped high velocity machine pistols is another option for dual weilding, as long as you only fire them one at a time.

Loaded with APDS of course.

However, taking him out from a rooftop with a Barrett might be a better option

The trouble is its likely to be a spur of the moment kind of thing, so I won't be able to do much setup (beyond APDS rounds, having the guns, that sort of thing). Otherwise I would have my main character take him out, by sicking the proper authorities on him (homicide by cop?), or several drones with assault cannons all trained on the street sam (I knew I put that laser designator in my eyeball for something).

No. Using Two Weapon Style you're able to declare a Fully Parry with one of your weapons without giving up your next action like normal. IE: I'm TWS with Right arm, attacking with Left.

Riposte works when you successfully parry with a weapon - you can then give up your next action to attack. IE: above example - someone attacked me and I Parried, then I give up my next action to shoot him with my Left arm.

There's no dicepool splitting, as you're not attacking with both weapons at the same time, although an Offhand Penalty does still apply (unless you have Ambidexterity or Offhand Training).

SnS ammo would work better. Capsule rounds with Slab work best.

The obvious question that hasn't been asked is why the need to take this guy out?

What's Slab? And how does that help me get around his ridiculous armor?




Well, see, I'm just being prepared. His last character needed to be taken out, and it fell to me, so I attempted the previously mentioned Homicide-by-Cop method. I spent several days in the hospital, and he got away. I'd rather not have that happen again.

Also, he's technically working for the Vory (to whom I am In Debt) in the capacity of bill collector, and made some threatening statements concerning little Yelena's safety if I fail to pay back my debts. So I see trouble coming, and want to be prepared.

Slab is a drug from Arsenal (you really need to read that book). When under its effects (and unless that guy has a Chemical Seal on his armor, he will be) you appear as dead - people need to make a First Aid Test to see that you're not dead. It lasts for like 10 - Bod hours, minimum 1. Technically, since it is a drug, there's no Test to resist against it; however, the Core Book (IIRC) mentions allowing Chemical Resistance Tests if you don't want to get high from something - in this case I'd make it a Power 8 or 10 drug that if you don't fully resist it you suffer the full effects.

Otherwise Narcoject, Pepper Punch, CS Gas, and other toxins would be your best bet against high bod/armor foes. Chances are they don't have Chemical Protection because your GM hasn't thought of it.

While thats awesome, I've been thinking about a shiva'd troll gunslinger using shotguns as pistols. Really! they're just troll sized revolvers!
All six of them!
At once!
On short burstfire!
...and using Adept Centering to get rid of the '-2(-1 for trolls) for using an oversize weapon in one hand' penalty in arsenal.

It starts to get fun when you play with the Choke settings. Flechette Hurricane.

You can't be serious
300 BP and better than a Min/Maxed 400 BP Samurai ?
300 BP and an Expert Gunslinger.... ?
If You consider s.o. with an AGI of 4 and a Skill of 4 (thats 8 Dice) as Expert Ok, but the 400 GP Samurai can easily sum up 10 -12 Dice
300 BP means only 150 BP for Attributes and you need 160 for an average Human being
so she starts below average and should be better than that Streetsam with 30+ Armor ( = BOD 12+ = Troll )

So You're asking for an impossible task and for what....?
For a NPC ,a Background ....

No WHAY ,Jose
Do It yourself !

with an insulted Dance
Medicineman

Well, I got permission from the GM to build her as a full 400 BP character (she's basically my backup). So how about then? And the Giant isn't Min/Maxed, he just has a pretty ridiculous Body+Armor. He's not the greatest melee combatant (he rolls 13-14 dice for melee attacks, I think) and doesn't have anything in parry, so as long as I can get past his ridiculous damage soak I should be ok.

Ok,
with even Grounds thats way better
And If its your Back up char than there is a reason to work on it

And the Giant isn't Min/Maxed, he just has a pretty ridiculous Body+Armor.
That IS one of the Definitions of Min/Maxing.
Maximising one positive Aspect(the Armor/Protection Aspect) and/or Minimising negative Aspects

He's not the greatest melee combatant (he rolls 13-14 dice for melee attacks, I think)
13-14 Dice is really Good !

and doesn't have anything in parry
thats not possible If he has a Skill (and with 14 Dice he HAS a Skill !) he can also parry !
so she must be Human female and a Gunslinger....
can she get restricted Gear (for Suprathyroid Gland and for Muscletoner 4 )
can she be surged ?
If Yes ,we can make her AGI 8(12)
with Pistols 6 ,Reflexrecorder and Specialisation we can get 21 Dice
STR 3 pimped RSW with Smart,Smartmotor, explo and APDS Ammo....no that wont be Enough
...Cybertorso with Cybergyro, Weaponsarm and Pimped Full Auto Enfield AS7 with APDS or XX- Ammo
but than she is no Gunslinger but a Weaponsplatform
GUNSLINGER (means Pistols,Revolvers,etc. SMALL ARMS in General ,base Damage 5-6K with Ammo maybe 7K
30 Armor (and BOD 10-12) means 42 Soakdice thats 14-15 Successes....
still Impossible ImO
.....Maybe(just Maybe) if she is Jane Lucky(Edge 8 ) and we use up all the Edge.....
7K with 30 Dice and Rule of 6.....Maybe


Hough!
Medicineman

QFT. At this level of resilience you do not want to fight this guy one-on-one. What's the situation? Can you get any of the other PCs on your side? If he's threatening young girls, I'm guessing he's not the most popular character on the team. Do you know where he lives? He's gotta take off that armor sometime; stage an ambush. Or just bomb his apartment. Poisons are problematic due to his high Body. Think like a shadowrunner, man! You need a man dead. Nothing says you have to challenge him to a showdown at high noon, and most shadowfolk would call you an idiot (and rightly so) for doing that.

Betrayal will kill him a lot faster than bullets. Make a social adept and convince the Vory he's embezzling money or otherwise betraying them. If you can can get the team on your side, even better.

Just figure out beforehand, if such underhanded dealings are fine with your fellow players.

Ok, quite frankly, what you need is a pixie mage posing as a human gunslinger mage posing as a gunslinger. Then when the troggy comes up and tries to melee her she just stunbolts him.

Gas could also work, but then you have to kill him, or else he'll use a mask next time. 12 body is still a lot to resist the gas. I would go with stunbolts. Most BSTs don't get too much in terms of willpower.

I always figured the best way to defeat a high armor troll wielding some number of weapons is to:

1) Disarm them
2) Glue armor to them until they are encumbered
3) Laugh and either steal their commlink or prevent them from using wireless
4) Watch them starve

I mean obviously direct spells are amazing against them, but presumably their reaction isn't that high so making a bunch of disarm attacks or touch attacks doesn't seem too difficult. If you were better at hacking then making them drop clips and taking the clips away seems like a pretty good alternative.

And the beauty of gluing armor to their armor is that the only way for them to get out of this mess is to take off their armor, which means they are vulnerable. Tadah.

Just use some DMSO weapons that ignore armor completely. Or at least use something that halves armor.

Bye
Thanee

Stick and Shock 1/2 armor, goes against the stun track.

That trolls willpower is probably pretty low. I doubt he has more than 10 boxes of stun.

or use the 8(s)e stun pistol.

She's a gun bunny, so she'll have plenty of dice.
8(s)e + net hits. Lets call it 3 which seems incredibly likely.
11(s)e
First The troll is going to roll body+1/2 impact armor to resist.
His impact armor is probably only 16, so he's rolling ~20 dice to resist 11(s) he's getting around 6-7 hits so 4-5 boxes.
Next he has to roll Body+willpower+1/2 impact. Sadly he only needs 3 hits, but if he somehow misses that, He's incapacitated for 2+attack net hits rounds. (so potentially 5 rounds)

Another Option, is a Flechette slivergun.

8P+3+net hits vs body+impact armor+5 against stun track of 10

14 Damage vs 12+16+5=33 dice.

If you can get the recoil compensation, specializded Steyr TMP with SnS ammo might be the way to go 15(s)e vs half impact.

The best way to beat high armor is to attack with either a -1/2 impact armor (electrical damage, fire damage, etc.) or an armor bypassing attack (toxins, spells, etc).

OR MAYBE the best way to beat high armor is to give them more armor. Think about it.

Another way would be to possess the troll with an Air spirit, have that spirit go into the stratosphere and leave the vessel. If the troll odes not suffocate, he will freeze to death and be smashed on impact. As another recaution do it in Winter over the Arctic Sea. Another chance for freezing or drowning plus it's very dark and secluded out there.

Also spirits leave no magical trace to you, after they are released.

I don't think an air spirit possessing something can fly unless the object itself is capable of flight. Could be wrong about that though.

One could hope that it could materialize, grab the guy, and fly him up. Little more difficult, but possible.

possess him with an air spirit, use the movement power on him and then run him head first into a building at max speed?

Now that you mention it, I'm not so sure either.

Unfortunately, metahumans don't do ramming damage unless they are rammed.

Ok, so I've got some more information based on last night's game. The Giant has a short stun track (he was nearly taken out by drones armed with tasers). He rolls 13-14 dice to attack with his swords (he has no gun skills to speak of) so I need to be parrying as high as I can (or not engaging him in Melee, but he does have pretty ridiculous reach). He rolls 30-34 dice for damage soak, so I need to be able to get around that.

I'd rather not have this character be all cybered out - her backstory doesn't support it. I'm not sure what SURGEd means, so she might be able to be that, depending on what it is. The GM would rather I avoid geneware for this character as well, I don't think I'd be able to swing more than one or two bits of gene tweaking, and I'd rather avoid it altogether. I would like her to be an Adept Gunbunny, maybe using Neraph's build as a base (namely, using Two Weapon Style to full parry with one gun, and then shoot suckers with the other).

Best way to deal with him (IMO) is to go for a B/E or Demolitions specialist. Place a proximity mine in the shower. Boom and good bye.

Option B - get someone to seduce him, go on a date--then worst case scenario will be FFBA and an armored jacket. Called Shot + Aiming, Head Shot. Pay the joygirl double for traumatic experience.

Illusion to get the dude to walk off of a building --> Falling Damage is ludicrous.

Also I'm pretty sure hot potato would work on those molten hot sword skills he's got.

Well, considering the tank in question, something along the line of Killing Hands+Elemental Damage (Sound) - which ignore armor and is stun rather than physical may also be a possiblity.

Also you could max out your dodge, deplacement speed and mobility in order to outrun him and shoot him from out of Melee range - with the kind of damage he can dish out he don't need to hit you more than a few times while you will likely need to wear him down with multiple attacks

Another possibility is using a Screech sonic rifle from Arsenal. While less cinematic than dual-wielded pistol it's 5 Stun damage ignore armor, are resisted with Willpower instead of Body and induce nausea an disorientation... But the 16 Availability can be a problem.

Also not too stylish but potentially effective unless he goes for fully sealed armor, gas or splash (DMSO) grenades - or capsule rounds.

The trouble with these is that the character in question is already somewhat established as a gunbunny, rather than a B/E/Demolitions Specialist, Pornomancer, Illusionist, and the like. I need to figure out a way, therefore, to screw him up with a Combat Hacker and a Gunbunny, on the fly, with a minimum of preparation. I'm planning a contingency for if/when he turns on us, not a hit.

Combat Hacker - Next time you upgrade his commlink's defenses (Firewall, IC, etc) build yourself a backdoor into the system, upgrade to Hot Sim, and load up a black hammer for yourself. If he's carrying his commlink, you can switch him over and beat him to death in the matrix.

Gunbunny -- stay at range, since the giant seems to be all melee. Capsule Rounds with Drugs and Stick/Shock will be your best bet, unless you catch him unarmored.

Wouldn't Possession, Movement, and a Jump roll combined with leaving the body midair through a Superman Leap have approximately the same effect?

Falling damage, man. Gravity ought to at -least- break a leg. There are rules for going *splat*crunch*, somewhere in the main book, right?

Or if you want to embarrass him, use the backdoor to shut off all his 'ware. What good is a deaf, blind, unwired samurai who may be missing the use of one or more limbs against a gunbunny?

Okay, I think some people are missing the fact that this is going to be a battle that the character will be entering into reactively/defensively against the tank, so none of these "plant a bomb on him/hack his commlink/etc." is really the right way to go about it.

That said, I think people are overestimating the problem.

14 melee attack dice
0 ranged ability
34 soak dice (presumably 2/3rds from armor, so 12 body, 22 armor lets say)

Agility 5 + Pistols 6 + Improved Ability 3 = 14/2 = 7 + 2 specialization = 9 dice to attack with. She can shoot 4 times in a turn, which means the 4th shot gives the troll a -3, and he isn't likely to have more than 7 or so dice without burning a turn on full defense. If he is taking full defense, then she can switch to just firing a single gun twice, which brings her up to 18 dice to hit with, no way the troll is dodging that. So, troll is going to get hit by a few bullets each turn. Best option is to load the gun with SnS (And good backstory for the character as she might not be up to killing people) which means she'll be doing 6S + net hits against a soak of 23 dice, which means she'll generally do net hits in damage per shot, and 2-4 shots a turn. So, she can do roughly 6+ damage a turn to the troll, which means she needs only 2 turn. If she is an adept, she can grab 2 extra IP fairly easily, which means she can easily take the troll down in a turn, which means that she only needs to start about 30m or so away from the troll in order to take him down before he even gets into melee range.

And if he gets in melee range? Rea 5(7) + Clubs 4 + improvised spec 2 = 13 dice on defense before even trying. Maybe throw in some combat sense or improved ability or something and she is going to be hard for the troll to hit in melee (though, admittedly, if he does hit, she'll likely go down quick).

And machine pistols make everything better.

Just as you pointed out it's pretty easy to solve this problem, but I think it's important to come up with all the angles. SnS was one of the first serious responses to the thread.

Get a machine pistol and mod it for as much recoil combination you can get and load it with alternating capsule rounds containing 6 different toxins mixed with DMSO.
Then just keep that gun with you at all times and when the giant starts a fight shoot him with a long burst and then just try to stay alive untill the toxins kick in and he has to resist 6 different toxins, even if he takes only a couple of points of damage from each toxin, he's still going down.

@Karoline
34 soak dice (presumably 2/3rds from armor, so 12 body, 22 armor lets say)
Its 30+ Armor BOD is to be added

0 ranged ability
we don't know anything about the Ranged ability

S&S Ammo is probably the best bet for the Gunbunny
(but she needs at least 2 IPs better 3 IPs)
problem : if the Nemesis is a Troll he'll be in Melee Range very,very fast
Or,If Gunbunny stays 50 Yards away,she'll get -6Dice per Shot....

with a very ,very fast Dabce
Medicineman