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Teryon
I suppose more accurately a face\infiltrator. Been playing for awhile, gotten some initiations under my belt, some languages, some augmentations. Currently sitting on 2-300k nuyen thanks to a somewhat naive but surprisingly genre-savvy AI that wanted freedom, and some karma. My dilemma is thus: What to expand into? Suffice to say Id do the usual dump more into things like perception, agility, social skills(bumping charisma at this point isnt really worth it, playing an ork and having it at 4 already), but the DM's already more than a little annoyed at the dicepools I throw around.

Ive been thinking of going into melee combat, given the need for quiet action when infiltrating. Other fun recommendations?
Makki
if your infiltration is ok, go get Exotic Melee Weapon (Garrote). It's a pretty fun weapon, the monofilament version. sometimes you don't even need to succeed in infiltration. as you're good in socials, too, you can just con him to look at that flying pink mini dragon over there.
Teryon
Im throwing 14 dice at infiltration regularly, and I recently picked up a chameleon suit and the masking metamagic power. Hrm. Isnt a garrote meant typically to be *non*lethal? Dosent making it out of monofilament kinda defeat the purpose? Just sayin. Its an option, sure.
Raiki
Amusingly enough, this concept is what my girlfriend is currently playing in my game. She's styled herself as a kind of Jane Bond. grinbig.gif

She absolutely loves her monifiliment whip, so if you don't already have one of those (or the garrote version as mentioned above) I would highly recommend picking one up. It's the ultimate "silent and deadly" weapon.

As far as the social pools go: If you don't have them already, I would highly recommend Tailored Pheremones. They would hardly be a dent in your nuyen pool at their bargain basement price of only 45k nuyen.gif . Enhanced Pheremone Receptors, while not quite as useful, and practically requiring a respirator, can still add a couple dice to most social tests. You may want to pick up those as well.


But as far as where else to expand, if you have the karma to develop an entire new skill, Exotic Melee Weapon (Monofilament X) really can't do you wrong for any infiltration-based character. Other than that, picking up some hacking abilities is pretty cheap. Buy yourself a nice Fairlight Caliban (for the awesome factor, even though you could do just as well with a cheaper one), get your hacker to pirate you some progs and go to town.

~R~
Teryon
Already picked up the fairlight caliban(DM learned to never give me an opportunity to negotiate price with the fixer unless he *intends* for a particular price; 1 million nuyen split four ways = profit!!!), and I do have an agent with a bunch of firewall and similar software on it to at least slow a hacker down. Im actively avoiding picking up skills already represented by the rest of the group, we've got a sort of comedic-sociopath-nakama thing running.

As for Tailored Pheromones...yeah, I tried getting that. The moment he read the description the DM said 'No. Not now, not ever.' Even after I said Id tune down the use of empathy software + image\smartlink and vis-enhancement contact lenses(bought in groups of 20 with multiple colors) wink.gif

Is there a sort of non-lethal garrote, or similar thing? Killing is one of those 'Well we fucked up big time' scenarios, and Ive got guns for that. Corpheads are more likely to come down hard if you've slaughtered their people after all.
Makki
QUOTE (Teryon @ Jan 18 2011, 08:17 PM) *
Is there a sort of non-lethal garrote, or similar thing? Killing is one of those 'Well we fucked up big time' scenarios, and Ive got guns for that. Corpheads are more likely to come down hard if you've slaughtered their people after all.


you can alwas use shock gloves. the damage is easy to apply, as you get the +2 bonus for touch attack, and it will knock out most of your enemies, as electric damage is really bad the way it's written.
or if your Strength value is good, look at the subdual combat rules and headlock them

these are all melee attacks. shooting is of course always better and maybe you want to save up for a tricked out stealthy pistol. e.g. a Puzzler or one of the PSK Collapsible ones.

empathy software is the most broken thing in SR, I laugh at your GM for allowing it biggrin.gif
Teryon
He didn't realize how potent it was at the time, and I basically said 'Tailored pheromones, or empathy software, pick' wink.gif What can I say, Im a natural born minmaxer. He *did* houserule out emoti-toys, which makes sense. ID be suspicious as hell of anyone with the things either. Shock gloves, yeah, am I being too paranoid for assuming any real opponent would do what I did and put the nonconductivity mod on their armor to eliminate that thing?

5S damage though, hmm. Id love to use darts loaded with drug cocktails, but damn, buying an exotic weapon skill just to use a dart gun? Seems silly to me. They're darts, fired from a pistol. Aside from range, whats the difference? Ive been considering saving up for a magic point and picking up killing hands + critical strike, and using the .52 essence left(Ive allocated exactly 1 essence point to be used for implants, ever) for muscle aug. Either that or pick up synaptic booster 1 and getting an extra IP. Right now the stealth troll is the only one with extra IP's, having saved every single bit of nuyen aside from the costs of a low lifestyle to pick up move-by-wire 2. And yes, I mean stealth troll. He's sneaked up on snipers and taken their rifles before.
Raiki
Well, there really isn't any such thing as a non-lethal garrote AFAIK. They're mainly used to strangle a target and/or snap their neck. The monofilament ones include the extra feature of bloody decapitation. If you're looking for a nice nonlethal melee weapon, there are a few varieties of stun batons I would point you towards. My personal favorite is the Jupiter Taser Club (p17 Arsenal). It works just like a normal stun baton (6S(e) DV, AP -half, Reach 1) except that it has a single taser dart installed. If you have a few ranks in clubs and a few ranks in pistols, you're good to go.

Other than that, if you want to add a bit more flavor to your melee, you could invest in a crapton of syringes and doses of Slab (p76 Arsenal). Alternatively, a rating 10 slap patch is only 200 nuyen.gif . Add either of these to a few ranks in the Unarmed Combat skill (and your high infiltration checks) and you have some very sleepy security guards.

Hope this helped.


EDIT: Okay, if you don't like the electricity damage (I understand...all of my characters have Nonconductive armor too.) then I stand by my syringes/slap patches suggestion. Unarmed Combat is useful even if you don't have any of them (unlike the exotic ranged weapon: dart gun skill) so it's a win/win.



~R~
Teryon
Ahh. Had the wrong idea of garrotes in my mind. Push comes to shove I could always use the microwire I carry for the grappling gun as a garrote, probably. Ive been leaning towards the slap patch\syringe idea for awhile, especially since thats how we took down a blood mage in our first adventure(never trust the guy serving you drinks, I don't care if you ARE at Dante's Inferno). I figured Id try and tap the collective crazy wisdom here and see if there are options I missed.

Thanks for the advice so far of course.
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