so i am making a troll bounty hunter,

the idea am i going for is a ex lone star cop who didnt get picked up when knight errent took over seattle, and took his skills to the one place he knew they would be usefull, the shadows...

troll
B 7
A 4/6
R 3/4
S 7/9
C 3
I 4
L 4
W 3

resources 19-95K
edge 1
initiative 7/8
initiative passes 1/2

active skills
athletics group 2
influance group 2
stealth 3
preception (vission +2) 4
first aid 3
clubs 4
unarmed combat 2
pistols 4
longarms (shotguns +2) 4
throwing weapons 2
pilot ground craft 2

language skills
english N
japanesse 4

knowledge skills
lone star procedure 4
seattle gangs 4
criminal hangouts 4
shadowrunner hangouts 4
safe houses 4

contacts
fixer 2/2
cop 2/2

possitive qualities
analytical mind
first impression

negative qualities
sinner (normal)
prejudiced (specific, outspoken)
bad luck

comlink
erika elite
iris orb
analyze 2
browse 2
edit 2
command 1
sub vocal mic
ear buds 3, audio enhancment 3, select sound filter 3, spatial recognizer


cyber/bio ware
muscle replacement 2
wired reflexs 1
attention coprocessor 3

gear
lined coat, nonconductivity 3
armoured vest

shock gloves
brass knuckles
az-150 stun batton
extendable batton
stun batton
tonfa/night stick

yamaha pulsar
2x ruger super warhawks
ares predator
franchi spas 22
defiance t-250 (cut down)

stick-n-shock
gel rounds
taser darts

doc wagon basic 1 year
middle lifestyle
harley-davidson scorpion

misc equiptment

Just recently I created a similar character, uploaded it here for you: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RME4SQ3Q

His concept and name is "Bloodhound" - hence he focusses on olfactory perception and boosts a quite impressive dice pool of 22 amongst other improvements there. If you like it, feel free to use and modify all or some of his stats.

What I find missing in your concept is basic "tracking" ability and a higher dodge (or gymnastics) dicepool. Also, i would choose just one of both {Clubs, Unarmed} and {Pistols, Longarms}, that frees up some points you could invest in your very low edge. Honestly, you dont want Edge 1.

If your goal is to play a character that your GM will love torturing, I highly recommend playing a troll with Bad Luck and a 1 edge. Of course, if you don't want every moment of the game to be the GM pissing in your cheerios, I'd recommend moving some points around to get away from that issue.

plus the Bad Luck flaw. your char has a good chance to not survive the first 3 runs...
KE patrol: "Look at this big guy. That LS looser didn't make it, now he's eking out his miserable existence."
GM: plz roll Etiquette
you roll 1 1 1 6 5 and want to use edge to negate the glitch. roll 1d6 plz. oh, another 1, it's a critical glitch now.
KE: "We need some backup here. SIN No xy is now status criminal. Plz put your hands behind your back"

no edge left for Hand of God, too.

One of the characters I write for has One Edge, Nas. Read his stories to find out just how bad that really is.

Eh, I have a lot of fun playing characters with Bad Luck and/or low Edge scores. In fact, I truly and deeply hate the Edge mechanic both as a player and a GM. One's luck is already tied into the fact that you're using a dice mechanic. A separate mechanic to account for it is bullshit. In other words, don't listen to them. If you like the idea of a down-on-his-luck type of character, run with it. Just make sure you can compensate mechanically by being persistently good in your main role, rather than only mediocre and relying on that stupid mechanic to save your hoop.

Besides, glitches are fun and I'd almost never want to negate one to begin with. You can succeed and still have a glitch. It's critical glitches that'll hose you over, and even then those can add a memorable moment to the session. So, again, why would you want to avoid that? Worst case scenario is that you end up burning that point for the Hand of God (or whatever they're calling it in 4th). And considering its only at a score of 1, it's easy enough to upgrade with Karma if you do decide you need to.

That said, I think the biggest mistake you're making in your build is spreading yourself thin in the melee department. Its better to focus on one particular type of weapon (well, one melee and one ranged) than to be kinda so-so in a bunch. Clubs and Longarms is the way I'd go with your idea, though having Pistols does make sense as a former cop. Other than that, he doesn't look too bad to me. You just fell into the diversity trap, which 4th Edition in particular is not good at dealing with. If you're not a specialist, you're pretty blase.

So my advice is to ditch some of the other skills, bolster your favorite(s) by a couple of points, then maybe invest in some of the Martial Arts perks and maneuvers from Arsenal. Ambidexterity, Off-Hand Fighting, and Two Weapon Style is a great combo that lets you both attack normally and use Full Defense simultaneously with pretty much no penalty when wielding two Reach 1 or 0 weapons.

Which is why you never spend Edge for that character. You can survive in a game for a very long time and not ever have to spend edge. OR, you do what My Edge 2, Bad Luck Cyberlogician does, only roll it when it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, and then take your lums when it does not work. Edge is not a requirement for survivability. Besides, I never negate a Glitch. Why would you want to do so?

I'm going to have to jump on the bandwagon as well. Edge is useful, but it is far from necessary. 2 edge lets you reroll that one roll you really would rather not fail, and have one in reserve for that "Oh shit" moment. Also take into consideration that edge refreshes. (Unless you burn it) Do you really plan on using 3-4-5 edge before you refresh?

it's in ones nature to want to succeed in what one is supposed to do?
I once critical glitched while taking a ghouls blood. without edge I'd be a troll-ghoul by now.
I once critical glitched in a toxin resistance test, with no edge left. Took me out for half of the rest of the run. How is this favorable for me as a RPG gamer? I got a permanent allergy, too. Again, why would I want that?

I'm not saying you need tones of Edge, but I'm with Ramorta, you want to be safe...

@Ramorta: there's always the Mr. Lucky concept. I play one sometimes, and I plan to use all 7 points per Run. Hitting the target with a grenade launcher with a dicepool of Agi 3 + heavy weapon 1 + edge 7 + reroll is fun for me...

Maybe I'm reading too much into his character, but my advice was guessing he just wanted extra BP to play with, not that he was playing a 'down on his luck' character, and that going with Bad Luck and Edge 1 was not a great trade for extra BPs.

I think that you should re-read Ramorta's post. He is saying that Edge is not all that necessary.

Seems that you were involved in situations that would have been crazy for a biohazard unit to engage in without a lot of preperation. Ghoul's Blood, Really, and you were not in a Biohazard suit while you were taking this blood? If you were, well, that is what a critical glitch is for after all, puncturing your suit unexpectadly. If not, why were you in that situation to start with?.

Anyways, with that 1-2 points of Edge, you have that cushion, just in case. You do not need 3-7 points of Edge. Especially if you rarely, if ever, spend it. It is a waste if you have any left at the end of the session. Even with my 2 Edge, I often have not spent ANY of it in a sesssion. I just see no need for a reliance upon it.

On the other hand, we do have a Mr. Lucky in the Group with an 8 Edge. He spends all of it every Session. Sometimes on such inane things as "Looking Good" while conversing with a Contact. Or, having already passed the Drive test with more than adequate sussesses, to add even MORE successes just because he wanted to "Look Good" while doing it. Waste of points as far as I am concerned, at that point

Apart from the edge-thing I want to repeat that I also miss the "bounty hunter" skills of this character entirely. IMHO such a character needs Data Seach, Tracking and more than 5 dice in social skills to "make people talk". After all, FINDING someone is what a bounty hunter must do before he can take somenone out / with him. I strongly advice the TE to read up on my character in my first post for an example on this.

If you have 8 edge, and don't use 3 of them, you're getting 15 more bonus dice on the rolls you are using Edge on as compared to someone who just has 5 and used all, and then you'll still have 24 bonus dice to catch unforeseeables with.
Or do other things. Combat can be an Edge waster. Buy an extra pass, Edge out on Initiative, Edge out on attack rolls, dodge rolls. Just the attack rolls could cost you 4 Edge per round just firing SA when dual-wielding.

That said, there's likely more efficient uses for the 70 BP to get there.

This is very true - A good Bounty Hunter has many of the same skills that a Good Detective has.

Over in the sample character archive thread



Now moving stuff around to the 20 points you'd need to be a troll wouldn't be hard. I'd probably drop animal empathy.

I really don't see that big of a deal about having low Edge and Bad Luck. Edge is useful, sure, but if you have low Edge than a 1-in-6 chance of those couple points turning against you isn't so bad. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to harm a character for having such a combo, at any rate. I'd rather see such combos than see people load up on 20 points worth of Incompetence.

Anyway, Tracking and Social Skills are a definite plus, but I think Data Search is pretty negotiable simply because Agents are so good at it that I can easily imagine that officer training would concentrate on meat skills that can't be so easily covered by electronic aids. If you can fit it in, that's great, but I'd sooner have Stealth, Social, First Aid or even the Hardware (helps beat maglocks) and Piloting skills since those are also reasonably useful skills for a former police officer and bounty hunter to have.

You need to be able to talk to people as well as have people = contacts to talk to

My 2

Contacts are a big thing for someone looking for someone else on the run. Flophouse Managers, Barkeeps, Delivery Drivers, Taxi Drivers, JoyToys... These are all people that can be contacted for info.

If they're more loyal to you (Or you can pay better), they'll give up the mook you're hunting with only a little bit of trouble.

I got bored and just plain made a sheet with the same negative qualities and (mostly) the same two contacts.




Anyway, some things to note about the sheet above:

1. It has less combat skills but kept good pools in the ones that are still there. The character can excel at hopefully less-than-lethal combat vs. live targets thanks to Subdual, which can threaten 9 stun thanks to his beastly strength (So, uh, try not to squeeze them too much...) and stick and shock loaded pistols. The internal airtank+Nausea Gas combo provides yet another way to make people wish he had actually killed them instead. As far as guns go, I recommend a Ruger Thunderbolt and the Morrissey Elan. The former because it's the Star's preferred sidearm and really hurts on a called shot and the latter because it's a pocket pistol that still packs enough punch w/ stick and shock to put down a standard mall cop no problem.

2. Don't be too put off from the loss of things like the Piloting skill from the OP's sheet. With the exception of thrown weapons, I typically only did this if I also included something that offset the loss of dice, like increasing Reaction and the Wired Reflexes rating. Likewise a point was lost from the Influence Group but the sheet gained a rank 4 Intimidation skill and First Impression.

3. I'd consider School of Hard Knocks, some of the strength and the Martial Arts stuff to highly expendable. You could buy quite a few nice contacts with those points instead. I just didn't bother with that route because I didn't feel like brain storming up which ones would work best for this character. Contacts REALLY vary in usefulness from GM to GM, after all.

4. This guy still can't Data Search on his own worth a damn. Just use some of that big pile of nuyen to get a top notch browse bot instead or maybe just slum it with a Pocket Hacker. With 60 grand to play around with you should still have enough left over to snort lines of novacoke off elf hookers afterwards as long as you don't buy anything fancier than a motorcycle for your vehicle.

Orks cost 20 and get 50 points of Attribute bonuses. Trolls cost 40 and get 80 points of Attribute bonuses. If you change this character to a troll, you will gain a net 10 build points.

thanks for the ideas so far everyone...

i thought that i should point out that my GM lets us re-roll 6s normaly so i dont need edge for that

also why dose everyone say that i shouldnt have two types of the same skill eg clubs and unarmed or pistols and longarms
i feel that the redundency that is made by being able to not have to default on this would be better then having to yeah?

i know that you can get much better for the preception tests then 11 or 13 dice but i though that it was good (math = logic 4 + preception 4 (+2 visual) + attention coprocessor 3)

i will have to pick up data search, more contacts, and some more social skills

Actually Orks only gain 40 points worth of Attributes for their 20 BP (Over a Baseline Human), because they LOSE a point of Edge.
Trolls gain 70 points, and Elves only gain 20 points. Dwarves gain 30.

Bu I really like me some Orks....

It's more that each of those skills is already incredibly versatile on their own. You don't really need all of them. Clubs, for instance, includes Stun Baton, Maces, Staves, Pool Cues, Table Legs, and so on and so forth. Even if you're without your weapon of choice, you can easily improvise something. So all those other points you have in Blades and Unarmed Combat are just kind of being wasted.

If you see the character being good at all of these things, however, by all means go that way. But if you're asking for help making a stronger character, its really unnecessary to have all of them.

What Ol' Scratch said. It's relatively hard to be truly separated from the Clubs skill and you can't really be separated from your Unarmed skill short of being bound and gagged. And yet, at the same time each of these skills overlap when it comes to their end result. Each close combat skill is mostly just good for rolling Reaction+Skill to avoid getting hurt or rolling Agility+Skill to divvy it out yourself. Meanwhile, skills like Hardware are fairly situational, but also irreplaceable-- you can try all you like, but you just can't use Armorer to slice a maglock. Redundancy is nice, but you really can't discount the opportunity cost.

Plus, your concept is a big fraggin' troll. You could potentially beat someone to death with the Sunday New York times if you wanted to. With 7+ strength there isn't necessarily much reason why you should swing an extended baton at someone when you could just grab them and dislocate their arms Chewbacca style thanks to the magic of overflow and Subdual combat. Now admittedly, your character won't be a real match for an all-out melee physad with either of our sheets. But FFBA, an Armor Jacket and 9 Strength means that the average Joe would frankly have better odds defending themselves from a pissed off gorilla.

Consider Skillwires. I know, people either love them or hate them. But for this character I could see them making sense, with your desire to be well rounded skillwise.

There are some good skillwire clusters in unwired that are affordable and useful to a bounty hunter (Whiskey Noir gives intimidation, forensics(know), and shadowing I think)

And you can purchase individual ones to help your Bp if you have enough cash. 10,000 a rating is harsh, but is 2 build points as opposed to 4 for a real skill.

Skillwires aren't so bad. Move-By-Wire... Dear $Deity!

Another nice thing about skillwires is that it's possible to essentially borrow a skill for a while if you really need to, something that can come in handy if you have a really good Fixer. Calling in a favor of that sort from your fixer is often a lot more expedient than say, learning Nautical Mechanic or Demolitions yourself.

so i have taken some of what you have all said on board and here is the update...

troll

B 7
A 4/6
R 3/4
S 7/9
C 2
I 3
L 4
W 3

initiative 6/7
initiative passes 1/2
essence 2.6
edge 1

positive qualties
analytical mind
school of hard knocks

negative qualities
prejudiced (specific, outspoken)
sinner
bad luck

active skills
athletics group 2
stealth group 2
influence 2
clubs 4
first aid 3
tracking 5
perception 5
data search 3
pistols 3
longarms 4 (shotguns +2)

knowlege skills
english n
japanesse 4/6
lone star procedure 4/6
seattle gangs 3/5
seattle mobs 3/5
criminal hangout 3/5
safe houses 2/4
security companies 2/4

contacts
fixer L 2 C 3
beat cop L 2 C 2
bartender L 1 C 2
spider L 2 C 3
smuggeler L 1 C 3

comlink
erika elite
iris orb
subvocal mic
ear buds 3, spatial recogniser, select sound fliter 3, audio enchanement 3

cyber/bio ware
skillwire 3
wired reflexs 1
muscle augmentation 2
muscle toner 2
attention coprocessor 3
mnemonic enhancer 2

gear
armord vest
lined coat, nonconductivity 3

wiskey noir

basic docwagon

az-150 stun batton
stun batton
extendable batton

ruger thunderbolt
ares predator
franchi spas-22
defiance t-250, cut down

BMW trollhammer

middle lifestyle

I'm really missing something Image/Smartlink capable still. With the cost of cybereyes, I'd recommend those. Cram full of stuff as desired, but Vision Enhancement really is hard to pass up on as well.

Also, a way to actually interface with the comlink? Trodes, or even just AR gloves?