I guess it just comes down to style. Were I building the character, I'd dump the SURGE, Ghoul, and Astral Hazing, and throw those points into funding some better attributes and a wider skillset. Add some security and demolitions skills to your infiltration for maximum usefulness, and get the charisma up high enough to make talking your way out a possibility rather than being the obvious monster everyone despises. Pick up the skills to repair and maintain your armor and weapons. Learn to drive. Consider enough computer skills to do basic legwork, or even a bit of drone recon.

But I'm always an advocate of the broad appeal skillset. Seen too many runners turned into paste because all they know is kiss-kiss bang-bang and the subtle things are lost on them.

So very true. Also, it's worth putting at least thought, if not BPs, into how exactly to disguise the combat monster you've made, at least to fit into reasonably polite society; how MUCH this needs to be considered is a function of whether your GM means "A-Team" special forces or "James Bond" special forces. In general, I try to make my metahuman SR characters capable of hiding their modifications while being able to clandestinely access an etiquette datasoft, not least because one of my old GMs loved to see if she could get the team into very formal settings as a means of infiltration. We usually botched it horribly.

That's simply false. Even just in terms of dierolls you're going to have less swingy results (the rolls will trend more aggressively towards the mean), but also the range of capabilities will vary more widely.


Are you going to unbreak quote tags, then?

Reference.


Um, you're clear on what "optimize" means, right?

~J

Which is exactly what I said...

A lot of the replies are getting more into play styles than optimization. Personally, I think you do need to sit down and have a friendly talk with your GM, to get a few more details about what kind of campaign he's going to run. For some GMs, you only need a bare minimum of social or sneaking skills, and combat breaks out a lot. For other GMs, you need to be cunning, fast-talking, and stealthy, and fights only break out when you screw up badly. A heavily-augmented fomori changeling busaw is the kind of character that could be either very effective, or doomed to a very short existence, depending on what kind of campaign it is.

I do agree that the most optimal combat monster is an unobtrusive one who can do other things. But you have to be careful. A one-trick pony may not be the most optimal character, but at least that character can do one thing well. If you generalize too much, you can wind up useless at nearly everything.

You said it was not a grade, and therefore available for both; I was just defining that "not a grade" does not mean "applicable to all grades" before he tried to find second-hand deltaware skillwires somehow.

Just another problem that came to my mind : ghouls are dual-natured. Add the karma hazing to the mix and it means that anytime you're trying to enter (as opposed to 'sneak into') a place that has magical security, there's a very good chance to raise the alarm. The second a security mage has a look at your aura he'll know there's something wrong. Of the the 'neck-deep, steaming and stinking pile of crap' sort of wrong. Because your aura will look completely wrong. They might not be be able to tell exactly what they're seeing, but with the sort of magical nastyness folating around in 2070, odds are they'll crap their pants and call the SWATs. Even if you go for an adep and initiate to to disguise the aura, the hazing and permanent dual nature are likely to raise some serious eyebrows.

Being dual natured also means you should invest in the unarmed skill - otherwise you'll be in serious trouble anytime an astral critters decides he'll take a bite on your astral form. Since you're dual-natured you will be able to counter astral combat with in-the-flesh brawl, otherwise you're stuck with defaulting and likely to end up as astral fodder.

His Essence-lowering augmentations will remove his dual nature (which is a good thing, because for any non-mage, it is a severe disadvantage).

You summed it up pretty well. Despite the fact that everyone agrees that more details are needed (from the GM, whom I can't reach right now) for tailoring the character to the specific setting, I'd like to see more of the concrete 'How?'. I think were all on the same page -- even if degrees differ -- about striking a fair balance between 'posing too much of symbolic threat by looking like a monster will make you killed' and 'being a jack of all trades might make you a master of none', but in order to come out of the combat-is-the-be-all-end-all-of-your-character paradigm, I need to know how I can optimize diversity. Because, even if CharOp is often seen (IMHO, wrongly) as maximizing one-trick-ponies, it can be finding ways to get the most out of 400 BP, given certain criteria and a global narrative theme.

Digression : In D&D, maximizing several roles was called, by well known CharOp SnowSavant, double-threat, triple-threat or even quad-threat. Instead of over specializing and unbalancing the game for everyone (like if you deal infinite damage, have spells that one-hit-K.O. people, or armor class that makes you impervious to mundane threats), it was a matter of being excellent in several key roles, by practical standards. Thus the division between Practical Optimization (playable) and Theoretical Optimization (over-the-top pun-pun ersatz).

So, how do you make the 'optimal combat monster' who is 'unobtrusive' and 'can do other things' ?

I checked the rules and yes being a burnout remove the dual nature problems. But even if he's no longer dual natured, his aura won't look any better. To make things worse, as a burnout there will be exactly nothing he could do about it by himself.

There might be some workarounds (an anchored aura masking spell is a possiblity), but they have their own set of inconvenients. The character should have some pretty serious arguments for his parent organisation to bother with that sort of problems. Arguments more serious than being a damage sponge and a mobile weapon platform - a pack or armored drones with ruthenium polymer coating would fit the role for a the same budget and far less hassles...

Of course if the campaign revolves around military special forces missions (commando strikes, lurking behind ennemy lines and raising all kinds of hell, that sort of things) the aura problem is seriously alleviated, though it's still likely to get any awakened allies rather jumpy. But anything that involves blending in will be in serious jeopardy as soon as someone can get a look at his aura.

Sorry, should have specified that I was referring to optimize for being good at one thing. Of course you should efficiently and effectively allocate your BPs to maximize the incremental gain for each BP spent.

@Quake - I think another important discussion you'll want to have, probably after you talk to the GM, is talk to your fellow PCs and see what they're thinking as characters. If they're also rolling super-de-duper combat monsters than you'l probably want to switch up your stance on what you'll wanna bring.

In reference to your dual to quad threat concepts, I've actually read that article, and if that's the logic you apply to your chargen'ing you'll be fine. The key to to find ways to synergize your attributes to your skills (obviously). So high agility is not only good with combat, but inflitration, athletics, etc. Another interesting and cheap concept is remote control rigging, because it takes Command Program, which you can get to 6 cheaply, and with a decent gunnery, you can suppliment your arsenal with arial drones with grenade launchers, machine guns, or whatever else you could possibly want. It's cost effective heavy firepower.

Step back and think about what a runner team might look like. Going back to my list of roles

Rigger: Kill Things. Operate heavy machinery. Spy optically. Triangle Button cars. Spy electronically.
Collect information from the Matrix.

Logic Trad Mage: Kill Things. Cast Healing Magic. Use a Medkit. Spy magically. Control escape routes with their mind.

Face (Face is the weakest concept, but here are some weaknesses with my list too): Fast talk themselves into restricted areas. Track down restricted equipment.

The other guy wants to cover the rest of the list + kill things. You are that other guy.


* Destroy entire installations - Explosives
* Stealthfully enter restricted areas - Stealth skills, at a high level. Synergies with high agility, which you're going to want anyway. You currently have ne issue though, you are completely unable to sneak into restricted areas like a plane. Once you are there you are a big strong dude, so I'd suggest finding a weapon to complement that.
* Successfully fight a force 8 spirit by themselves - Big guns, but to do this you need a SPECIAL gun. You only took automatics, which doesn't give you a sniper rifle, which is typically what you want for this job because otherwise you cannot bypass protection from normal weapons (full automatic fire doesn't help) War! might have something that solves this issue for other guns, but whatever.
* Bypass doors - B&E skills are all keyed of agility if I remember correctly -
* Smuggle PCs into/out of various countries - Not sure you can pick it up, this is a problem for the face at the end of the day

There is a reason that a huge chunk of mundane combat characters are snipers, because it works wonderfully. I'd suggest adding that to your back pocket. Launching an infiltration assault is a bread and butter mission. Other things you can easily add to that:

Spy optically. <-- a sniper can do this ontop of what ever else it is he can do, and it's a natural dovetail for your skillset.
Use a first aid kit <-- This is just handy to know

One tip, in SR4 skillwires where AWESOME for precisely this character because you could have a skillsoft for all the crazy crap that you would use once in a blue moon like scuba diving, paracuting and explosives SR4A nerfed this to hell for reasons that are not clear to me. Then the character role becomes something like being a swiss army knife - you could always be relied upon to have a solution for whatever the problem was at hand.

So I'd be looking to squeeze all the stealth skills, B&E skills, explosives and longarms in.

I tend to find that Face characters can parley their smooth talking into cov-ops situations as well. Don't forget, Faces can also hit up contacts for leads on investigations or for information, not just equipment.

Don't forget, smart use of knowledge skills will get you access to knowledges like smuggling routes, security procedures, etc. These knowledge skills can be useful for planning missions as well.

I was just adressing to Medicineman, who did use quote tags in his first posting, but not in the second. Or am I mssing something here?

I'm just being peevish about the ongoing existence of this issue, which admittedly Medicineman would not have triggered but which makes it difficult to argue for using quote tags (you can get to the end of writing a post and then find that you need substantial edits to get the board to actually post what you wrote)—there's no board limit on how much italicized text you can have.



Right. The argument isn't against optimization, but that excessive focus on local optimization can result in significantly globally suboptimal results.

~J

IMO Fomori is mechanically the best buy . Nice attribute mods, Arcane Arrester, and the option of getting Celerity.

Not caring much about heavy weapons I´d go for Body 7 / Strength 7, and skimp a bit on willpower to get higher Agility and maybe Charisma. IMO the karma cost of Body ratings beyond 5 do not reflect the utility well. Increased lethality justifies a bit more than that, so there.

I personally prefer to play Ogres. Common size, able to blend into middle-to-lower class crowds without attracting notice, still nice attribute mods.

I see. Thanks for the info.

Gotcha... But that is already spelled out in the rules anyways... But no worries...

A few reflection on the character as exposed :
- why the Buzaw ghoul ? If I'm not mistaken stat-wise it is the same as you run-of-the-mill ghoul.

- the idea of using nanopaste to usurp the face of people you killed is a bit strange. As a fomori, you cannot credibly pass for anything else than another fomori or an adolescent "standard" troll as you are smaller. How many young troll do you expect to kill ? Besides trolls pose another problem to the would-be impersonator : their horns vary widely between individuals and yours cannot be hidden and won't match. If it's purely for hiding your real face rather than impersonating a given individual, stick to "generic" or made-up, computer-generated faces that have the additionnal bonus of not linking you to multiple murders - or did you figure that as a kind of creepy, serial-killer like, "trophy-taking" ?

- Use a bit of money and Essence on the Digestive Expansion bioware. Think about it : as a troll-based ghoul you need to eat soemthing like 6 kg of raw meat a day, with at least 2 coming of a metahuman, and eating anything else (even cooked meat) will make you nauseous, you will probably vomit it fast or face severe digestive troubles as your HMVV-altered body is unable to digest it. The bioware will not remove the need for metahuman meat, but will allow you to diversify your food intake, which will come as a big help if you want to hide your ghoul side.

1) That controversial idea came from the fact that Busaw, in exchange for a mild allergy to salt, have +1/+1 armor (life dermal plating).

2) It somehow related to the trophy thing, but you're probably right that it could hardly be done with fomori.

3) Good idea !

@others : Thanks, I'm taking notes !

Is this written somewhere beyond the fluff in RC ? I could not find and advantage/disadvantage write-up for the variant.

But if it is the case, I suggest you keep that +1/+1 and don't add a second layer (+2/+2 ?) with SURGE, as that will make your skin rougher than normal for a troll and making your character more noticeable. The 5 BP of Surge could be put to other uses, like Celerity.

Note : if you change your SURGE traits, I'd strongly suggest to remove the astral hazing. First because it will make life easier for every awakaned character in the party. And second because, as I've already said, it will mean troubles anytime someone has a look at your character's aura. Quoted from the book : disturbing the character’s aura and any ambient mana in her vicinity. Even if there's no hard and fast rules, it's pretty clear the hazing has a visible effect on your aura.

Being a ghoul isn't exacly great in that regard, but the hazing makes it far worse. Basicaly any security mage having a look at the character's aura will have it under surveillance and the intervention teams on standby. Even if he doesn't know for sure why your aura's looking so bad, it will very clearly mean 'potential trouble' to him and odds are he'll prepare to nip in the bud anything that might happen.

Back on the 'making life easier for the others' side : Just think of what's going to happen whenever your character spends a few days in the same location : most magical security (wards, patrolling spirits) will vanish or be reduced to almost nothing, the mage's focuses won't work. He can forget about pre-summoning a few spirits for the job. If there's an adept in the group, he will end up severely gimped in case someones attacks your home base... And if the bad guys are using mundane forces for the attack, they won't have any penalty...
Last but not least, even if the rules don't mention the problem, most character will probably wonder wether the astral trash you're leaving behind will taint their magical goodies, and maybe even their own magics...

RC, p.79, under "Optional Rule : Alternate Infected".

@Manunancy: Good point !

Astral hazing gives you awesome advantages against magical attacks, but it can potentially be a very devastating disadvantage, depending on how the GM plays it. In the case of this particular character, he already has Willpower: 7 and arcane arrester, so he doesn't really need astral hazing.

For digestive expansion to help a ghoul, it must be deltaware. But some 'ware to help you "pass" would be clean metabolism (to get rid of the body odor) and gastric neurostimulator (eating other than raw meat will still give you some internal distress, but at least you won't suffer penalties from nausea).

Note the brackets around "deltaware". If this was true for all Infected, they would be pointless. As a ghoul he does not have the Regeneration, and IMHO the "deltaware" part is here as a reminder that some Infected - like Vampires - need it in delta grade, but others do not.

Think about it : Clean Metabolism and Digestive Expansion alters the same parts of the body (you cannot have both bioware), but somehow one of them need to be Deltaware and not the other ?

Or simply use 5 BP of SURGE to get Ogre Stomach, it will work the same !

It could also just be a reminder that deltaware *is* required. In this case it doesn't mean that: Runner's Companion makes it very clear that it *is* dependent on the Regeneration power. The grammar could easily be either way, though. Grammatical (or, syntactical, etc.) arguments are never a good idea.

All that crazy stuff combined would get you smacked at my table. But if your GM is ok with it...

Adding to the discussion, why no Bone Lacing? More dice to soak, more armor, nasty unarmed damage.
Dermal Sheath (which I rather) or Dermal Plating to get more armor or soak. Sheath most likely since if you used top end Bone Lacing and a Suprathyroid your looking at +5 Body (only for soak).

Essence cost is a bit much, that's probably the main issue.

I would probably go with Dahrken's interpretation of the rules, but when I am giving advice to a player, I tend to assume the most stringent interpretation of RAW by the GM unless told otherwise. But Quake can always ask the GM - "Does digestive expansion have to be deltaware for a ghoul? Can I get Ogre Stomach for the same effect?"