I'm trying my hand at creating an ORK mercenary, and want to make him as resilient (tough to kill) as possible. I've got a rough outline, and was hoping for some general suggestions as well as specific help on which bioware / enhancements to choose, weapon combinations, general thoughts on being a total badass, and wether I have high enough dice pools for each action (last part of summary).

Here's what I have so far, any help is much appreciated.

you definitely need some 'Ware. either Bone Density Bioware or Aluminium Bones. Then add Orthoskin or Dermal plating. Or cut off zour Limbs and get Cyberlimbs.
The Toughness Quality sounds nice, but isn't that good bang for the buck. it's 10 BP, which is 50k nuyen, which you can get Rating 2 Dermal Plating AND Aluminium Bone Lacing for.
There is more nice stuff, like Trauma damper or Platelet Factory

omg I can see, where this thread will go...possession spirits are waiting

tough to kill means high dodge pool as well, omg. there's so much potential. Gymnastic dodge can go into 20 easy

As tough to kill as possible, eh. Now you've done it.

1) Platelet Factory + Trauma Dampner
2)Genetic Optimization, Enhanced Attribute Quality and Metagenic Improvement Quality for a Body of 12.
3)Ware to boost that Body to 18
4)Bone Lacing
5)Vasocon
6) Auto-Injector
7) Edge, and lots of it.
8)Armour Jacket, Full Body Form Fitting Armour and the whole Secure-Tech PPP line.

That's just off the top of my head.

You could afford to be waaaaaay tougher if you trade the boosters in for wires, ditch dodge, trade the combat skill groups in for one or two stand alone skills and skip the high pain tolerance. High Pain Tolerance in particular is a quality I'm not very fond of due to its cost. Between Stim Patches, NoPaint and Snuff there are pretty decent pain management options available if you can spare a moment to use them while Pain Editor bioware costs about as much as HPT 3 and is often much more effective, particularly since a high Body ork can pack a pretty impressive armor rating and shunt handgun damage down to the Stun track with fair consistency.

Nice! I love the suggestions already. I was trying to stay away from chrome and go more 'natural' for concept sake, but I might just change that up. Any thoughts specifically related to defending against magic? (it's currently the reason why I have so many points in willpower)

Nice. Looking up orthoskin now. As for high dodge pool, will probably invest a little more but I want this guy to be all tank. I can leave the quick feet to our sam. What are the 5 d's of dodgeball again? lol

Willpower gives you stun boxes as well, which is good. How about the Magical Resistance positive quality. It's actually pretty nice, although a friendly mage will have problems as well. But Willpower 5 and MR 4 is 9 dice against mages.

Is there 'ware to boost body?

If you get the ware to boost your body to 18, this won't help with DR tests since it increases body for DR tests. It's not a dice pool modifier.

Why armor jacket?
Why not SWAT Armor + Helmet + Full Body Form Fitting + full SecureTech PPP + ballistic shield?

wouldn't that be 12+2+6+2+6 / 10+2+2+6+4 = 28/24?

so 46 dice against bullets (assuming 18 body)?

This character is going to be basically a body-guard to a mage with counterspelling 10, so in the right circumstances it could be 19 dice versus magic. But that also means the same negatives apply to any spell he volunteers for (like heal) <SR4a92>, or improved reflexes, or combat sense. Will have to think on that one, but it seems the obvious choice doesn't it.

Harder to cast health spells on guys with a lot of 'ware anyway. Magic resistance all the way!

Don't forget to get a solid commlink with as high System as possible. What's the sense in being a hulked-out damage soak if your matrix damage track is only as long as any BTL junkie's.

Toughest Ork Possible?

Samuel L. Jackson, Goblinize him. Done.

He would still have a vulnerability to giant sharks. And you know what happens when you have a single vulnerability. Goblinjackson would be walking down the street and be attacked by a chromed up pack of giant sharks. Even on planes full of snakes (his specialty) there would be at least on specimen of the majestic and deadly shark snake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMwmqp3GLMc

Greatest vulnerability ever! Lol

Great call! Totally forgot about that.

Knocks on OrkJackson's door: "Candygram."

Cyberlimbs. Nothing beats em.

You get an extra damage box for each, and one level of pain resistance as well. Slap that lovely cumulative armor on it as well, and a 4 limbed sammy has 8 armor nekkid, 4 more damge boxes and 4 more pain resistance. Couple that with a pain editor, and you are rocking.

You can also put hidden compartments in them to hold explosives.

Ask Kid Stealth how effective explosives are.

Day almost over and still nobody mentioned RC? unbelievable.
Go get SURGE and Arcane Arrester solves all your antimagic needs.

In general, the idea of an ork with bullets bouncing of is pretty cool, but it's even cooler, when nobody knows why. That's why I don't like obivous cyber and metal in general (MAD scanners etc). Bioware is cool, but one can also build a (mystic) adept with Mystic armor, Supernatural Toughness and Attribute Boost (Body), maybe one point of bio...

or be a Fxx Free Spirit with realistic form.

Cooler? Debatable, some people don't like the whole chrome angle, sure.

But in my experience, being impervious to small arms fire and just looking like a thug in an armor jacket is going to raise some questions for corpsec, which in turn is going to raise the alarm for the in-house mage to come assensing...

Hiding in plain sight is definitely the way to go, I think.

This isn't even fun anymore. Armor + cyberlimbs + Pain Editor + Astral Hazing + Arcane Arrester. Sigh. It won't be fun to play, either.

I knew about the damage boxes, but I never saw anything about pain resistance...

That's because you haven't read the rules yet! Hurry up.

Yes, it's a big tradeoff: you lose tactile perception, oh no!

Hey, blind people need that to read!

Nuh uh, that's why god invented trodes! Who even reads anymore? It's a direct-thought, icon-navigated world.

Thanks guys. I read the rules carefully. Apparently each cyberlimb you attach gives you access to another rank of an 0.5 PP Adept power.

Seriously though, that's what Pain Resistance is. I don't know what you were talking about since there's nothing in the cyberlimb gear section about it.

And that's why I like Shadowrunners. They keep print alive, even if it's in digital format.

Convince your GM to make you a cyborg.

Get Arcane Arrester to take care of those pesky mages. And whatever else you can justify carrying over after you're just a brain in a box.

Get installed in an ork-shaped Tomino.

Enjoy your 30 vehicular armor and whatever else you can cram in to the thing.





-k

Yup. I'm not a huge fan of rc zaniness. Will probably stick to a plain old ork, and focus on enhancements to make him as tough as the concept will allow.

Loved the suggestions earlier about enhanced attribute and metagenic improvement of attributes, that helped alot.

I like the idea of dual cyberarms actually, but a total cyborg seems a little too far out there for my taste.

Unless you plan on slowly doing it during the game it pretty much cripples you otherwise. Also plan to acquire access to deltaware, which is nigh impossible in some rounds.

If you're staying sane about it, I'd do 2 legs instead. More capacity for all kinds of cool stuff (inc. armor), you can get the 'jumping jacks' (which are just plain fun, and protect from falling damage), and you keep your natural Agility for shooting guns… but you can use your cyber-strength for kicking! No cyberarm gyromount, but I consider the tradeoffs worth it. Plus, your legs are are more likely to be fully covered by clothes at all times.

With body = 10, he does have the right to bare arms.

See what I did there? ... 'bare arms'... Anyone?...

Quit trying to make with the funny and hand out the veal.

Plenty of time for that, I'll be here all week...

baaaa-zing!

Two cyber legs just isn't as 'badass' as two cyber-arms, but like Dakka Dakka says it can be crippling in character gen, especialy as a high-physical stat metahuman. I'll have an update on my build shortly with some of the suggestions included.

*shrug*. If you're doing it right, your natural arms are probably better, that's all.

Squinky's Old fashioned Badass recipe:

Get 4 cyberlimbs:

2 armor each = 8 armor nekkid. (more is possible with restricted gear quality)
customize them 3 points and add another 3 to agility and you are at max agi for an ork. Adjust other stats to taste. Add other cool crap like spurs, gyromounts, etc. Nanohives are particularly good if you have extra cash.

Save build points by not upping strength and agility at all. Make sure to get a decent natural body that will work well with averaging on your other limbs.

Get a pain editor and with your +4 dmg boxes you will essentially have one great big damage pool. Have natural willpower be something like 2 or 4 (even) as the pain editor will push it up to the next rank that will gain you a stun box.

Options to save on essence:
Adapsin treatment (if GM allows)
Bio-compatibility
Purchasing used-alpha ware nets you a little gain for the same cost.
Cyber-suite rules may be an option.
If it fits you backstory, an adept on the burnout way gets a little more essence savings, for about 15 BP

This should provide you with enough essence left to get a rating one wired reflexes or move by wire. You should be ahead on build points from having spent none on strength and agility, so you can have better skills or more edge etc.

Look into getting a dice roller app or something, as folks tend to get irritated with you rolling such huge dice pools every time you are attacked

Yuck.

It fits the discussion, making the toughest character possible.

Sorry its not to your tastes. At least I stay away from the craziness that is Runners Companion

I agree, of course. And you're right: it doesn't fit my taste, and I felt that was the pithiest way to express that. I wasn't saying that your post didn't belong.

It's just so cheesy, I mean really. Used alphaware? And the careful tightrope balance of huge Essence costs, Essence-saving BP sinks, … honestly, I think the suggestion of deliberately abusing the Adept rules was the real kicker. I mean, it even says 'don't let your players try this' in the book. Hehe.

Yeah, I posted some stuff I would never use, but I'm here to inform

I personally like cyber-limbs, and am pretty familiar with the rules on them. So much so that I have to make myself ignore them when I make a sammy cause they are too good. Nothing beats them on standard armor, for sure.

Bio-compatibility and maybe if your GM allows a suite would be about the end of my essence tweaking.

Get two raptor cyber legs and put skimmer discs in them. 300% move speed.

Hehe! I'm not sure he meant 'tough to kill' as in 'hard to keep from running away so fast'.

Can't kill me if you can't catch me!

But if drek hits the fan, realistically, how tough does the Sammy need to be? Tough enough to be the last man standing through the barrage of fire? Or tough enough to pick up his downed teammate and get the hell out of dodge?

… Yes.

Yes, but you should still be punished.

Draw this character now.

Bah, I draw no more

Just to make sure: The Pain Editor only blocks dice pool modifiers from Stun damage! Cyberlimbs only give Extra Boxes to the Physical Condition Monitor.

True, and I think you must be trying to clarify that they by themselves wont achieve this, but just a clarification:

Pain editor: the big thing here for a cyber-limb character is that you will not go unconscious from stun damage, essentially just smashing your stun and physical pools together. You will most likely take stun the most, and stun overflow will just go into that big old physical pool you have (+4 from limbs).

I promised an update for this last week, but couldn't make the time to get to it untill now. So far, here's where I am. I'm trying to stay away from chrome to avoid cyberware scanners and being hacked, keep my character fairly well rounded, and at the same time make him as tough as possible. I'm also trying to keep essence as high as possible to offset the negative effect magic resist has on the beneficial heal spell. Am I spreading myself to thin? Is my logic crap? Where do I go from here?