I'm trying to put together character skeletons, and asking for input.

A character skeleton isn't a complete build. It is, instead, what a new player or someone unfamiliar with the class can consider absolutely necessary. I've got two of these put together on googledocs so you can see what I mean. I'm very comfortable with TMs and sorta getting a handle on mages, but feel free to suggest changes and corrections for either.

The Technomancer.
The Mage.

Allow me to emphasize that these are starting points for players to finish; adding qualities, skills, attributes, gear, that sort of thing. I'll also point out that experienced players could NOT take something on the skeleton and make fun and interesting characters. That's for experienced players who don't need the skeletons in the first place.

I'd enjoy it if people could provide skeletons for other classes. With permission I'd save them to googledocs as well, providing links and crediting the author(s).

Huh?



Anyway, I like your idea. I'll give it some thought.

Yeah, looking back that's unclear. I meant the experienced player could decide not to include something that the skeleton says is needed (say, take away summoning from the mage) and still make a playable character.

These are for the new players, whether new to SR or new to that class.

Is this what PACKS is?

It's an interesting idea, but there's the question of how complete to make the character.

If I make a skeleton for the standard gun toting character, it could be as as simple as agi 6, auto(assault rifle) 6, muscle toner 2, Wired Reflexes 2, and an Ares Alpha, but it could also be much more complex.

Not quite.. it's indeed only a skeleton, the absolute bare bones of a build. AFAIK, PACKS was a way to quickly assemble a complete build with quick-buy packages.

A skeleton only includes things or choices absolutely necessary: for example the Mage must take the Magician quality, and (realistically) the Sam must take some form of IP enhancement: "choose one - [Synaptic Booster/Wired Reflexes/Move by Wire/Drugs]".

The main goal is to make sure you're aware of the important choices you need to make during CharGen, and to make sure you don't forget to take essential stats or equipment.

Well lets start with

THE BASICS (no one should be without)

Survivability - Because something will go wrong, and dying to a holdout pistol is embarrassing

Body 3+.
Reaction 3+
Dodge/Gymnastics 2+
First Aid 1+

Perception 2+
1x Passive Vision Enhancement (low light/thermal, flare comp, smartlink, enhance III)
1x Active Vision Enhancement (ultrasound, radar, smartlink, flare comp, enhance III)
1x Audio Enhancement (Dampeners, Enhance III, Spatial Recognizer)

Doc-Wagon Basic +
Medikit (6 unless houserules on size)
Trauma Patch(es)
Stim Patch(es)

Not-painting-a-bulls-eye on-your-character

Etiquette 1+
At least 1 set of meet clothes

Infiltration 1+
At least 1 set of "on the run" armor
Vis Mod -2 or better (camo, ruthenium, whatever)


Lethality
2 IPs - it can be cram or wires, less than 2 IPs is cannon fodder.
Pistols 2+
Ares Predator IV or pistol of choice.
Defiance Ex-Shocker


Commlink
Throw away link (cheap 1/2 is fine)
Real link (3/3 or better, preferably 4/3 )
Firewall as high as you can crank it.
Analyze as high as you can crank it.
All common programs 3 or better


SINs
Fake SIN 4
Fake SIN 2
Licenses for the above
Some form of disguise


Other:
Tag Eraser
Stealth Rope
Gecko Gloves/Climbing Gear
B&E equipment
Utility Chemicals

Just to demonstrate how that's additional and NOT common to all: Why does the TM need those two commlinks or the various programs? For that matter, why does every member of the party need her own set of B&E equipment and stealth ropes? And 2 weapons? really? Doesn't the mage's stunbolt and the TM's doberman make up for those a little bit?

Its more of a baseline, to be honest, but unless a character concept screams against it, most of those are solid essentials.

Rope. You can always use rope. And if your going to bother with rope, it might as well be stealthy when your flush with cash. No, really. You'll use the rope.

The TM is probably the one type that doesn't need two links and progs. He does need a throwaway though, unless he wants to broadcast "I'm a TM, I'm a TM, come capture me for nuyens!" every time he walks in public, and some progs to go on it. But, then as you said, players can modify it as they see fit.

B&E: Because at some point in your career you will want to say "and i take out the crow bar/magnet/glass cutter/chisel/whatever". Its like the rope. One day you'll use it, and the handful of nuyen it costs will be repaid manifold.

The pistol and taser: Because dobermen aren't welcome at meets, or in corporate hallways, and the ones carrying machineguns are kind of frowned at in public. Likewise there are those times when you don't want to risk drain or leave a signature. Now naturally if your playing Katana mc-slashninja, then you would probably rely on knives and kicking people in the face and such.

Makes lovely sense. However, by the time I put all this in the TM (not to mention raising all the other stats to 2), the TM has nothing left for drones or vehicles.

They are solid essentials, and the point is to advise new players, rather than restrict experienced players. Unfortunately, the archetypes fail in this regard a lot - most of them lack DocWagon contracts or any fake SINs or licences, or have glaring skill or gear omissions.

What I like about that list is that it doesn't eat up too many build points. Some people have such a long list of what they consider "essentials", that they don't really have enough points to be good at their main function, too.

TMs are very difficult characters to make. They have multiple "important" mental Attributes, need about three skill groups, and then need to buy up a special Attribute and purchase complex forms. So expect a beginning TM to usually be a bit "squishy" compared to other starting runners.

Starting with 2 IPs still seems pretty much Applied Cheese to me. It's cool to have, gives you an advantage in combat, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely necessary when starting. Ork yobs and low-level bangers aren't going to be hopped on Cram all the freakin' time after all. Especially if all they'll be able to do is flailing pointlessly with their piss-poor dice pools, trying to land a hit on the PCs and failing. Not all cops and security guards are going to be wired or hopped on Jazz either.
If the players don't know they're supposed to have 2 IPs, don't push it. Sooner or later they'll figure it out.

That (what I emphasized) is part of what drove me to start making the skeletons. I'd be sitting with over 400 points to get most of what people considered essential, not knowing what to cut, and by the way not having some of the stuff I thought interesting or useful.

For what its worth, based on comments here and other places I've posted these I think I'm going to make some "recommended additions" -- more than what I've already put. Like the skeletons themselves I'm going to try to keep them at the bare bones level. That way players have room to add a few things in which they're interested, not despair at what they must cut.

AppliedCheese, I'm looking again at your post and I'd like a clarification.

When you said:


Did you mean one out of a choice of low light OR thermal OR flare comp OR smartlink OR enhance III, or were you meaning "all of these"?

Yeah those vision/audio enhancements seem kind of heavy. I'd say on vision you just really need the passive enhancements, and only one of thermal/low light. The Ultrasound and Radar can be skipped on. Similarly for audio enhancement I'd only call Enhance III a necessity, though the others are nice if you have the capacity for them.

I mean, given the cost… doesn't everyone always get every enhancement? It's boring for the GM, but it's just simple economics for the runners. Cheap, effective, no-brainer.

The availability on those add up pretty quickly. And with all the vision enhancements listed you need to use goggles rather than contacts/glasses, which could cause issues. If you get cybereyes you're fine, but not everybody wants to get those.




low light, thermal, flare comp, smartlink, enhance III, ultrasound, radar


Those are the listed 'necessary' vision enhancements. This doesn't include Image Link, which you need to buy on goggles. So you actually end up with 8 total capacity used out of a max 6. But we'll ignore that.

Base availability on rating 6 goggles is 0, and costs $300. The cost on the rest is:
Low Light: +4, $100
Thermo: +6, $100
Flare Comp: +2, $50
Smartlink: +4, $500
Vision Enhancement 3: +4, $300
Ultrasound: +8, $1000


Radar I couldn't find as a vision enhancement, so assume this was meant to be something separate. We'll assume you only take thermo instead of both low light and thermo, to make room for an image link. That gives you a total availability of 24. Yeah, the cost is only 2350 nuyen, which is dirt cheap, but that availability is outside even what you can get with restricted gear.



Okay, under cybereyes I DID find a Radar Sensor. And cybereye mod availability is take higher rather than stacking mostly, so you CAN get all of the mods listed in cybereyes... as long as they are rating 4, you get them all with 1 capacity to spare. (Dropping Low Light or Thermo isn't enough to drop cybereyes to rating 3, so may as well grab both). However in this case it costs you a full .5 essence, and 18,750 nuyen. Or .4 essence, and 37,500 nuyen. Either way, not exactly cheap, and there are many characters who won't want it.




As for the audio enhancements, I didn't see Dampers cost/availability for earbuds, so I can't comment on that, but it would require a rating 2 cyberears to get it internal. (In this case you're probably better with the earbuds)

It adds up… to peanuts. Especially for the ability to see, hear, etc. Yes, there's some wonkiness with the avail and stuff. It's easier to buy portable sensors, velcro them to you, and trode it all into your skull.

And you think this is something everybody should be doing?

Yes. It's unreasonable not to, if they care about being alive. The rules are stupid like that; sensors should be significantly more expensive, trodes and sense feeds shouldn't be so no-brainer, etc.

Besides, there's no reason you can't do contacts and goggles, etc., to circumvent the stupid Avail stacking, or wait until game start.

Along the lines of Lowlight OR Thermal, AND Smartlink, AND Enhance III, whatever else you can pack in.

Similarly, Radar OR Ultrasound, AND Enhance III, Smartlink, and whatever else you can pack in.

The concept being "I have a pretty good, pretty cheap way of seeing that doesn't scream my position to the world" and I have "Oh shit, they threw in the thermal smoke and killed the lights."

See, it is my opinion that it is unreasonable to do so, rather than not.

Yes, but only from a non-crunch perspective. Like it's unreasonable to get an Ares Alpha with S&S, or to wear PPP with… anything, etc. Fluff-wise, it's nutty. Rules-wise, it's obligatory. If the rules made it harder to use supergoggles+contacts, or to pipe 12 sensors into your brain, then it'd be different.

Not obligatory. Not everyone does it after all. Encouraged though? Yeah, probably.
Every game system has that problem, though. As soon as you start to go for optimal, you will run into that. All it takes is time and money for it to be a problem.

My point is that the sensors/senses are dirt-cheap, that's all, and basically zero cost for integrating them into your puny monkey brain.

Puny Monkey Brain... I like that...
Yes, comparatively, they are the cheepest upgrade you will likely ever get. That does not mean that you should.

No, it does. That's what it means.

Only in Munchkin Land...

*shrug* This isn't Binky. When it comes to minor issues like being able to *see things* (/other senses), we are all munchkins now.

Anyway, I assume the point of character modules was to combine the cheap, effective, and annoying details into convenient packages. Sensors in SR4 is the one thing that fits that bill most, for me. Oh well.

Face

Assumed meta: Human
Positive Quality: First Impression (5 BP)
Softcap (usually 5) Charisma. (40 BP)
Willpower: 3. (20 BP)
Skills: Influence Group: 4 (40 BP)
Intimidation: 2 (8 BP)
Total 113 BP.

Recommendations:
Bioware: Tailored Pheromones: 3 (9 BP)
Willpower: 5 (20 more BP, total 40 BP)
raise Intimidation to 4 (8 more BP, total 16 BP)
Positive Quality: Adept (5 BP)
Starting Magic: 4, reduced to 3 by Bioware (30 BP)
Powers: Kinesics: 3, Commanding Voice, 1.25 PP remaining for other powers
Total 185 BP

Peripheral ability suggestions:
Perception: 2+
Data Search: 1+ with good commlink
20+ points spent on contacts
note: for languages, take at 4+ rating.

Not recomending empathy software because it is cheese, but if it is allowed in your campaign, you had better take it (another reason to get a good commlink, I guess).