QUOTE (Neurosis @ Aug 19 2011, 06:44 PM)
Speaking personally, I'd like to see a human adept with a focus on martial arts (definitely including kali) for melee combat, parkour, and non-explody throwing weapons. No 'ware of any kind, but other than that cheesed/optimized to the absolute maximum. My most-played 4E PC is such a character, and I am curious if someone seriously into charop could do it better/differently than I did. (One mistake I made was putting a lot of points into both Unarmed and Blades, I really should have stuck with just one. Of course, from a strict optimization perspective, going with melee at all was probably a mistake, but I really am not looking to be that hardcore about things.)
That's just me, though.
Unfortunately, the Missions ruleset bans Martial Arts qualities/manuevers, which makes melee combat a generally iffy proposition. No Way of the Adept makes it even more so. Unaugmented seals the deal. Under these conditions, melee combat is good as a combination of a highly concealable weapon and a way to get a melee defense bonus against stuff that uses it (paracritters and spirits are often melee-centric, and a lot of NPCs have a completely irrational hardon for melee), and (for the Bad Enough Trog) a way to get people to focus attention on him, but it doesn't work well as a primary attack.
Under the conditions of human, pure adept, melee and throwing weapons, the way to optimize under the Archetypes ruleset would be armed combat, because I am assuming you cannot apply adept unarmed combat powers to non-unarmed Unarmed Combat attacks (ie, Hardliner Gloves or the like), which locks you out of Weapon Foci. However, Blades is actually not a good idea, because as an unaugmented human you simply cannot do enough damage with them; with STR 5, you'd be doing only 7P with a nodachi. There are several sensible ways to go, all of which involve using weapons that do fixed, Strength-independant damage: that means monofilament whips or stun clubs. Because you rely on a Weapon Focus you kind of are forced to pick a single weapon type. You probably want either Monofilament Whip (8P/-4) or some variety of stun baton (the winners being the plain one for 6S(e), the AZ-150 for 8 charges but +1 DV, or the Stun Staff for +1 reach but no concealability), and then carry lethal club weapons for beating down drones/vehicles. Either path leads to a similar character though.
Let me hock up a quick outline:
Magic 6, powers Improved Reflexes 2 (2.5), Imp. Ability Blades 3 (1.5), Quick Draw (.5), Combat Sense 1 (.5), Improved Ability (Agility) (.75), Power Throw 1 (.25)
Body 5, Agility 5(6), Reaction 5 (7), Strength 1, Charisma 1, Intuition 5, Logic 1, Willpower 5, Magic 6, Edge 6 (305 bp)
Qualities Adept 5, Aptitude (Weapon) 10, Restricted Gear 5, 35 points of negative qualities of your choice (-15 bps back)
Skills:
34 Weapon 7, spec Specific Weapon (unless Exotic)
16 Throwing 4
Gear:
10 Force 5 Weapon Focus (chosen weapon)
Throwing Weapons: Nets, Molotov Cocktails, Boomerangs (yes, really. Nets are generally the most useful since you can use those with Quick Draw to immobilize 2 people per pass, the idea is to net people and then close in and kamurder them. Molotov Cocktails do 5P vs. half impact which is nifty. Boomerangs have the best range of any thrown weapon.
This leaves 50 for other gear and more skills; you can probably fit in the bare basics on that.
The core problem this character has is severe one-trick-ponyism. Probably the best version of this character is the monofilament whip user; you end up with 18 dice, reach 2, and an 8P/-4 attack. Unfortunately, that just isn't very impressive - you can do much, much better as an Augmented gun user without specializing nearly as hard.
Of course, this is all talking about under the restrictions of the Archetypes - no Ways, no Martial Arts, and very conservative assumptions about how the rules work. It might be more interesting to see how things work in a more relaxed environment, more similar to the campaign you played your PC in. Do you allow Ways? I assume you allow martial arts. What is your campaign's answer to Critical Strike with unarmed combat vs. Unarmed Combat (ie, do those adept powers work with stuff like Hardliner Gloves)?