I like making characters for Shadowrun. There are a lot of options, and you can make a lot of different types.

I cannot make a good Drake character. As I see it the drakes loose cyberware / bioware / worn equipment when they change. The powers they get are very low compared to what they loose, and the forms they are quite weak in combat. The cost of the race reduces the flexibility in the character quite a lot. I am struggling with the idea that when the S**t hits the fan the drake turns back into a human because they are tougher and do more damage, but thats the case for every character I have managed to make.

Am I wrong...is there someone out there that has a cool Drake character? If so how do I make a drake that's fun to play, and not so fragile that a little old lady with a hold out pistol can blow through their armour.

Well, I'd say that the first and foremost requirement is Dragonspeech metamagic so actually being in drake form is more attractive. Im sure that there are rules somewhere for "Barding", so you could even armor up in drake form, it might be expensive but what are you going to spend you money on anyway?

Adepts powers and spells are kept, so an adept/spellcaster drake could be a solution.
Switch your fire attack to an electric attack, because electric damages are powerful bordering on broken.
Getting posessed by a spirit might be a way to get tougher, though I'm not sure how the hardened armours act in that case (do they stack, do you only consider the highest?)

This would be my suggestions, too. Adept or even better: mystical adept are the only logical choices if you are even thinking about switching to drake-form in combat EVER. ^^ It is basically the same problem shapeshifters have....i played one for years and NEVER changed to the animal form in combat. Possession is a very good solution and who cares if the armor stacks, as long as you have 10 points of hardened armor from the spirit (force 5)?. But beware: if mages are usually shot first because they tend to gloom...what do you think happens if somebody is going to change into a freaking mini-dragon? Good luck from me...MUAHAHAHAHAHA.

Thats what I thought too...I can just see it... Its like someone clay pigeon shooting saying "pull", the dragon goes up and every gun targets, shoots and the dragon falls into little pieces.

Drakes are one of those instances where I think you have to want the flavour over the mechanics.

We have on in my last game who wasn't terrible, it helped that we treated him at build stage as a melee adept more then anything else. We also allowed him a nodachi that could be used in both forms (he was eastern dragon so had hands) This did give a bit of fun to him but he did suffer from the loss of items when he shifted without preparing first and scattered his clothing (if he was lucky he didn't have to roll for damage from the armour).

In my opinion the only reason why he was viable was the GM's myself included didn't stick the knife in with the obvious added difficulties of dual nature and being hunted (were lightly touched on but mostly were allowed to stay light as fun was more important).

Strictly speaking I don't think he would be putting together another one as he did find a lot of the mechanics less then fun but the flavour he really liked.

The team itself was pretty freaky so his strangeness wasn't to bad, it was very much a pink mo team in some respects.


If I was to put one together now I think personally I would go the mystic adept route as well. Working mostly Adept to start with to up the ability to survive early on but then moving more into the mage side as karma allowed it thus getting best of both worlds.

Check out what I put together some time ago.

Drakes are amazingly great at infiltration. You can skip out on combat skills, meaning skimping out on combat durability in favor of avoiding combat.

Nice: a real stealth adept.

The entire design was "how do I make every benefit a drake gets an asset and not a liability?" and that turned into not wearing armor in human form (transform to drake get armor, rather than losing it) to implying combat avoidance to stealth.

From there it was just finding the stuff that stacked with what I was already doing (drake is naked in dracoform + dynamic skin -> camo when naked = bonus).

I don't think I could have done much better. Could use some Assensing (drakes can see the astral when in dracoform), but the build is pretty BP strapped and Assensing is on the low end of usefulness, comparatively speaking. It's also a demo build, a "start here and tweak" deal.

First, paying for playing a Drake offers mechanical advantages over non-Drake metahumans and a cool factor.

Any stacking of attribute mods is dominated by augmentation.

The powers are cool but can mostly be dominated by spellcasters making good use of the additional BP. Levitate/(Elemental) Ball/Armor plus sustaining foci can be had for less BP.


Let´s simply assume you WANT to play a drake. I understand. The way to make it worthwile is making the dragon from part work conceptually. Western drake adept / eastern drake spellcasting infiltrator / Menehune Sea Drake mobility adept and others. What do you expect from a workable character?

Exactly. Always build to the drake's benefits and never do anything that makes you reget going drake form.

(Spell to have: Mind Net)

If you want a combat-drake you'll have to go for a Fomori-Drake-Adept. And don't even think of actual combat until you have at least 100, 200 Karma points.

The best thing about Drakes' their HMHVV immunity. Natural Ghoul-slayers.

Wait . . a Fomori Drake?
Does he get the Arcane Arrester in Drake Form too?

As it's a surge power, I'd say: Yes, he does.

Metatype quality rather than Surge, but yes, it stays, like it would stay if the Fomori is turned into a dog with a Shapechange spell.

Combat can be handled by Natural Weapon + Mundane skill. Especially if you have a Troll base.

Fomori Drake - 175 karma

Attributes - 325 karma / 500 total
Body 7 - 35 karma
Agi 4 - 45 karma
Rea 3 - 25 karma
Str 6 - 30 karma
Cha 3 - 25 karma
Int 4 - 45 karma
Log 3 - 25 karma
Wil 3 - 25 karma
Magic 5 - 70 karma
Edge 1

Qualities - 0 karma / 500 total
Mystic Adept - taking the long view here
Mentor Spirit - for the extra dice
Perceptive 2 - extra oomph for Enhanced Senses
In Debt 5 - fittingly, it´s hard to afford other ressources here

Powers -
Magic Power 3
Combat Sense 2
Mystic Armor 2


Skills - 230 karma / 730 total
Unarmed Combat 5 - 32 karma
Exotic Weapon Breath 4 - 22 karma
Dodge (Ranged) 5 - 34 karma
Stealth 3 - 35 karma
Summoning (Choice) 3 -16 karma
Binding (Choice) 3- 16 karma
Counterspelling (Combat) 3 - 16 karma
59 karma for knowledge skills and others. One could try to start with some spellcasting ability.

Contacts - 20 karma / 750 total


Do not get into firefights in Fomori form.

Rethinking this, I'm not sure anymore. Does a Troll-Drake get reach +2?

Bear shapeshifters do in metahuman form. I think it even stacks with the troll reach (one of the very few things a shapeshifter gets from their metahuman form).

Go eastern drake adept. Then go for heavy weapons and automatics as you have hands with opposable thumbs.. The ability to fly and fire will help. Use range to separate yourself from counterfire.

Gratulations, you have just built the most wanted biological aerial drone O.o

Heh, I call that 'playing turret', when I can have a character hover above and away, laying down fire from on high. A concept I've been wanting to run for some time, is a Drake grenadier/bomber.

Of Course he does
And doc Byte is totally Right. last Weekend I had a chance to play mine at a conventieon...
She needs at lest 100 Karma to be on one level with other starting Chars.(She had to start with CHA 1 ,LOG 1 ,Edge 1 and a total of 36 BP for Skills only)
But then....she'll get very ...interesting

with an interesting Dance
Medicineman

Flying Rocket/Missle-Launcher.

GOod character thats a drake, huh?

Hacking
Drake 65.
adept 5
Trust Fund 1 10
magic 6 65
Cracking group 4
Electronics group 4

Adept powers:
Improved Technical Skill Hacking 2 0.5
Improved Technical Skill electronic warfare 2 0.5
Multitasking 0.5
Improved Reflexes 3: 4
Rush 0.5 (if it works with reflexes 3)
or Enhanced Perception 2 0.5

High Lifestyle w/ at least the following
Privacy Screen(matrix)
Free Access
Fung Shui
(its for hack at home)

and like some trodes and pirated programs.

What?
Adept hackers are great.
This one also happens to be a drake.

Very nice: in fact I love it: A drake who always wanted to be hacker

My only problem with the character is that he would have been better IMO to have spent those points he spent on being a Drake on absolutely anything else: cash, skills, a bit of cyberware, being a mystic adept with spells... I don't think the character is better hacker for being a drake, and I am willing to bet that the character is probably tougher in combat as a human than a drake.

That's trivial. Body armor, done.

Custom drake body armor? Again, the drake aspect is only holding the character back. While the OP doesn't say, 'a good character because it's a drake', you have to assume it's not really intended as 'a good character despite being a drake'.

Really, the only thing I can think of is a Phys/Mystic Adept. That infiltration Drake sheet is pretty dang awesome though.. if I ever wanted a stealth-based character, I might try that out sometime (with tweaks of course, don't want to siphon all of your idea there buddy).

If you're gonna switch elemental breaths.. I'd suggest Electricity, Light, Sand, or Smoke. Don't ask why, I'm just a sucker for secondary effects. Being able to deal Stun damage that resists conventional armor is nice (Smoke), with the added benefit of invoking a visibility modifier if they're still conscious.

The problem is, the only good drake is an eastern drake. Because they still have hands.
Beyond that you have to figure out what their "bonuses" are good for and what their weaknesses are and find a role that matches.

Drakes, in order to be meaningful, need to stay out of combat (otherwise you might as well save some BP and be an orc or troll). Upon this realization you find the roles that put them into the support category.

Leaving you with Mage (but then, why aren't you an elf or human? Or a pixie. Pixies make great mages), Rigger/Hacker (cyber ends up being a Very Good Idea, plus being a drake is neither an asset nor a liability, and just wasting your BP), and Infiltration (flight? HELLS YEAH).

That Hardened Armor and Mystic Armor are nifty though.

Hmm.. Eastern Drake with Killing Hands + Elemental Strike... then elemental breath. ;D

The hardened armor is *not* nifty. It's worthless.

Sadly, the flight is the only aspect of infiltration that they're better at. SURGED camo skin is an expensive and second-rate alternative to more mundane camo options.

'Fixing' drakes is a reasonably worthwhile pursuit. The easiest option is to bump their innate armor a bit, so they don't just die. They *should* be someone who can go Hulk and crack some skulls, or at least take wing and breath magic on people… that's as strong as a pistol. Thank god it's elemental, at least.

Does the Hardened Armor take into account other armor bonuses.. such as Mystic Armor adept skill?

It totally is. :\

And while the camo skin is "expensive comparatively," you can make it work.

I did an elf-drake mystic adept with only 150 BP on stats and 88 on Active Skills and wasn't terrible, just spread a little thinner than I'd have liked (also a bit of a [physical] hacker).

I'd do it again, if I was given the chance. I had the best three spells ever, one of which I never got to use (Borrow Sense;* the other two being Improved Reaction for +1 IP and Camouflage).



No one knows.
The only thing people agree on is that you only have 4 hardened armor. How that stacks with your adept not-hardened-armor is open for debate. Generally speaking, it's "damage under 4 is ignored, damage under (4 plus other) is stun."

*I should have known before hand, but I was a little caught up in a more general build for a more general campaign. Best way to get passcodes EVER.

Nyost: Sort of. The Hardened aspect doesn't get augmented.

Even if they just bumped it high enough to block light pistols (and machine pistols), that'd be something. I'm not saying make them invulnerable. Maybe a weakened ItnW? *shrug*

Draco18s: yeah, I'm sure you can make it functional. I just meant that you're not gaining anything (which isn't necessarily the goal, of course).

If they made it "Hardened armor equal to the drake's magic" then it'd be useful. Every drake goes mage/adept/mystic and gets magic 6 at chargen (which they should anyway). They can ignore (most) melee and small arms. And more initiations means more magic means more hardened armor.



True, all I mean is, there is at least one build that they won't outright suck at and be able to put their drakey powers to use. It might not be efficient but you don't always need to be 100% efficient to have fun (ah, the Troll Hacker with 1 logic. *SMASH FIST INTO SERVER RACK* "This look like hard drive. I take. Hack later.")

So, Hardened Armor 4 + say, 1.5 points worth of Mystic Armor (Adept)...

So you get 7 Ballistic and 7 Impact armor.. but the ''Hardened'' effect only occurs if the modified damage value is less than 5, as opposed to 7?

Suppose that makes sense... if you could just stack Armor atop Hardened Armor.. you could make a walking tank of a Drake PhysAd.

Edit: That'd be neat Draco. Be kinda interesting (possibly a bit strong) on a standard Magician though. An initiated Drake mage/shaman with Hardened Armor and Mystic Armor 7. Breathe spells down the throats of your enemies and watch their puny mortal weapons bounce off?

I suppose 7 isn't necessarily THAT high of a rating.. but hey...

Plus, everyone would get SURGED Granite Skin and abuse *that* instead of bothering with drakes anyway. Alas.

Yes. Except the damage will never be less than 4 unless the opposition is doing it wrong.

Wow. That really does suck.

And I thought Drakes would be high-powered characters (especially for that BP). Guess I should've read more closely.

Barely relevant: at my table, attacks don't automatically get that first net hit to damage (effectively, it's eaten by a Threshold 1), so a light pistol actually could do DV 4. That's not RAW, though. AFAIK, no normal firearm will hit for less than 5, and no reasonable melee attacks either.

A punch from a well trained, but Strength 1 human can do 5 damage (4 net hits!).

Hmm, does that stack with the Drake hardened?

This is why I believe hardened armor should count as subtracting dv. As it stands now it simply avoids nuisance tyPe damage.

Definitely not, Stahlseele.

The *point* is to avoid nuisance damage. The problem is it's not high enough for actual nuisances. :/

You would have 7/7 hardened armor and be unable to wear additional armor.

I don't see why they bothered noting that it counts for encumbrance because it's three armor. It's almost impossible to be encumbered by that (Strength 1, I think).

Granite skin is even worse of a deal than the drake's armor, but the two do stack (but even 7 hardened armor is near meaningless).

Body, actually.

Ah yes. Of course.
I obviously haven't played in a while.

Which Johnson hired her? Which runner wanted to work with her?

The Johnson who owned her "Uncle Peri"(Perianwyr from Denver) a Favor
And she was not totally useless and they were all beginning Runners
(what is the correct Phrase : she stood her Ground ?)

he who dances in the Weekday Eclipse
Medicineman

Yeah, I'm sure she was totally good to catch bullet. But Logic 1 and Charisma 1? Dude, she's stupid and nobody likes her. That are major drawbacks for building up any relationship, even more so when acting with professinal criminals.