Yes, that's exactly what I said. Oh wait, no it isn't.

Min/maxers abuse the hell out of the rules. The sheer thought of not starting with an Agility of 9 on such a character boggles their mind. Just look at the handful of people bitching about it in this thread. Worse yet are the ones bitching about the number of build points it takes to get it, and how an unaugmented character can't "make up for it" with the same number of points and, somehow, that proves that anyone without a maxed out augmented attribute rating is trash. Or whatever point they're trying to make by saying things like that. I still can't figure it out.

For whatever bizarre reason, they just cannot comprehend the idea that no one is saying that an unaugmented character will meet or beat what an augmented character can do. Instead, they're blathering on about how if they're not min/maxed to the extreme levels that an augmented character can be min/maxed, they're "worthless" and "already dead." Even though that's complete and utter bullshit, especially when an unaugmented character can be only a couple of dice behind them, and how they can very nearly match what a reasonably designed character can do.

And yes, the concept for such a character includes the fact that the character is relatively min/maxed while augmented characters may not be. But that's entirely in character for that character concept, because they're trying to prove -- either to themselves or others -- that they can be competitive through hard work, training, equipment, tactics, and sheer smarts. They're effectively the "Batman" of the shadows. It doesn't mean they have the same exact stats, the same exact capabilities, or could necessarily even win if they got into a on-on-one pit fight with their counterparts. But no one has said they should, except the people yelling at the original poster for the sheer audacity of wanting to create an interesting character archetype -- an archetype that is included in the gameworld and the rules regardless of how badly she's designed.

Not even close.

Every build that can be done by an unagumented mundane, can be done better via augmentation.

Even if you're going for a low-attribute generalist: because of the attribute cap, both the augmented and unaugmented character will have the same base attribute pools. They can buy a whole crapton of skills. The augmented character, however, can afford an IP booster as well as skillwires, increasing the amount of skills he potentially has access to.

Which is what I said, Cain, if not in the same verbiage. Cyber always provides an Edge.

Again, please stop bolding and italicising my name. It feels outright accusatory.

Second, you said it provides a significant edge to min/maxers. As I demonstrated, that's not the case. This build isn't "significantly" better, it's just better.

Min-Maxers get significantly more bang for their buck if they Min-Max their Cyber. Most do, you know...

Man, is she ever. The sad thing about the weapon specialist is that if they had concentrated on the armorer/tech wiz aspect rather than giving her a grab bag of ineffective combat skills they could have had a playable concept. Basically, as an unaugmented character the more you can do to avoid opposed rolls while doing your job, the better. I am biased against unaugmented combat specialists because they are literally involved in an arm's race that has potentially deadly consequences for losing. By contrast being the team skill monkey and buying up the oddball skills nobody else wants to take and having a big grab bag of contacts and weird gear to parcel out isn't nearly as demanding a role. There isn't much glamour in it, but the thresholds you need to hit are generally nice and predictable and when you screw up it usually just means the job takes a bit longer rather than get you shot in the face.

Sad thing is, that role sounds more like a Contact than a player.

Contacts are sometimes too busy to return calls though. That's a problem when you need a bomb disarmed, preferably yesterday.

Good luck with that one. He does the same to me, including adding capital letters where they don't belong, despite my requesting otherwise. I think he does it just to piss people off.

I'm sure it's just a habit folks. No need to be spiteful about it.

No, it's very much intentional.

So basically, to have an unaugmented character that's not too weak to cause problems, only the unaugmented PC can be min/maxed?
(Problems with creating challenges not too dangerous to the unaugmented character, but challenging to the augmented characters.)

Taking augmentations isn't munchkinry nor min/maxing, not by default. The question is: can an unaugmented character keep up with reasonable augmented and magical builds? Maybe, but it's very hard, and it's hardest in combat niches.

Of course, this too is better done by an augmented character, since there's so many ways to boost attributes and skill categories with ware. Cerebral Boosters, PuSHeD, neocortical nanites, limbic nanites, Encephalons, whatever that + to intuition linked skills geneware is ...

Nope. But someone creating an unaugmented character does need to work harder to make them competitive. Cyberware is cheap and easy. Coming up with something to challenge it isn't.


No one to my knowledge was arguing that at all. In fact, that is exactly what most people in the thread have been saying.

It's the posters who have been saying asinine things like unaugmented characters are "worthless" and "as good as dead" (I don't remember the exact phrases they were using) that I've been replying to for the most part. They're also the same ones who keep pointing to overly min/maxed characters as an excuse for it, when most real characters are anything but. At least in my personal experience.

What I really don't get are the people who keep saying "augmentation or magic can do ____ better." No one has ever said anything to oppose that statement.

Threads like these make me so glad I don't have a bunch of rules lawyers sitting at my table.

Once you get them drunk, the rules lawyers are harmless...

About 40 will do. Higher if you're in a hurry.

Oh, we have plans for them. Walks away muttering about drop kicking their ass out of the car after a 40 mile drive up north...

They might starve to death arguing about the best way to get home.

(Some say that's a bug, some say that's a feature...)

Seems to me that a mundane, non-cybered character is very plausible; the only thing holding him up is Initiative. I dislike 4ed initiative anyway and slightly modified it for my own games a long time ago. But even working within RAW, there are drugs for boosting initiative.

This thread has gotten me thinking about designing such a character: The Chemist aka. "The Candyman." He makes designer drugs, enjoys them himself. He is mundane and has a sensitive system. Saddened by being unable to take advantage of the best of recreational electronics, he long ago turned to chemicals. His knowledge of chemistry led him to not only drugs, but explosives. He would have taken high levels of stealth (in order to steal his material components and research). He has charisma born of a need to broker his drug deals.

Basically, this person can be a face, your demo guy, your medic and could function with a team in its stealthier endeavors. If a GM provides any lattitude, he would allow Mr. Candyman to have a goal of creating tailored drugs to fit a player's needs (Ie. reducing the chances and/or effects of addiction of his own creations.) The character isn't going to be spending tons of money on cyber, so he can invest that money on his labs and research. I personally think this could be quite a fun character to play and would truly be someone different than jsut another mage, or sammy.

I also guess my philosophy about characters is different than some. You allow the player to create a character they are interested in playing and then you design the adventures around them, not over-doing the areas they are deficient in. Yes, sometimes you go there to make them feel the heat, to keep them on their toes and to make things interesting. But you never put them into situations that they are completely unequipped to handle. What is the point of that? Where is the fun? Not every mission requires a high level commando team. If you enjoy every mission being a dragon hunt, great! Design those characters and hopefully you have a GM that caters to their builds. If you enjoy exploring other aspects of the SR universe, then create those characters and hopefully your GM will provide you an arena to explore those aspects.

What is a realistic/ viable character is going to vary dramatically from table to table.

Vlad

Awesoem Concept, Vladski... And well stated...

Vlad: I don't think that's unusual. The issue I see is in making the mundane combat capable with regards to the rest of the team (which was the impression I got from the OP). Balancing the chatacter with opponents seems easy. If everyone at tbhe table had the same limitations it would be easy to do as a table. But without knowing the other characters I can't say the charcter can be on equal footing with them when they have access to more efficient things to spend BP on.

Well, to go back to the original post:


(emphasis mine)

So sure, a Face, Rigger or Hacker is doable, we've established that. But combat is precisely the hardest.
Drugs can somewhat solve your IP problems (under the common Dumpshock estimation of 2 IP being right for a character not particularly aimed at combat, who doesn't want to be bad at it). But to be better that a gangster on drugs (aren't they all?), you'd either need to do extreme point squeezing or use a lot of Edge.
So it comes down to the Edge refresh rate: if you refresh Edge entirely each session of a multi-session mission, it can work out well. But that's often thought to be excessive refreshing, and I think most groups do one complete refresh per mission, with perhaps one point per session in between. Then even 8 Edge isn't all that much; you need to choose carefully what to spend it on.

So, can it work? Well, as a dedicated combat character, I think you'll be disappointed. There's a good chance the other PCs will be just as good at combat by spending a few points on augmentations, and the rest on some primary niche. And any other primary combat characters will be more powerful than you, because anything you do to be powerful, they can do more efficiently.

As a character who doesn't want to be useless in combat, but isn't built as primary combatant, it can work, but it's not easy. To feel like a useful part of the group, you're best of taking some other niche and taking basic combat competencies through drugs, edge and specializing in one type of gun.

The best niches, as has been pointed out, are those where you don't get a lot of opposed rolls, particularly not against augmented opponents. Medic, chemist, demolitions, Face, hacker, rigger can all work, because even when they do opposed rolls, the difference with a non-min/maxed character will be surmountable.
(Most of the time pornomancy is overkill; Cha 7 + Influence 4 + Specialization should be sufficient against a vast majority of NPCs who didn't specialize in social conflict. I think the hacking difficulties weren't based on stacking vast amounts of implants that were introduced later, so your unaugmented character would face tough but fair odds. Riggers are a bit tougher, but delegating to pilots and autosofts helps. Medics, chemists and demolition men don't face a lot of opposed rolls.)

But in the end, you will be less powerful. Augmentation is the most efficient route to power, so refusing it sets you back a lot.

Yes, there's always a bare minimum of augmentation that should be considered. We've gone over that roughly a billion times in this thread already. But the thing with techies is that there's not terribly many drawbacks for throwing merely adequate dice instead of incredible dice and so they're one of the few archetypes that can cover stuff for the team without dipping into their gear cap very much-- they could use a couple of shops and the general purpose stuff most runners need, but that's about it. It makes them pretty well suited to being the guy who takes one for the team and pays for the pimped out Eurocar or a Trustfund and Facility combo.

Short:
A guy that starts with no ware and magic?
Possible and viable if you do not have a very combat focused group. (Since the best option is to become a jack-of-many-trades it is better to use Karma gen)

Staying like that for more than a couple of runs?
Possible too, but you will turn slowly into a sidekick. (The other runners will pick up secondary skills, too and due to their high attributes and boni they will outshine you pritty fast)

Jack of all trades definitely isn't the best shot. Before Augmentation and Unwired hit the best path was definitely a hacker who dabbled in drone herding. There's now more reasons to get wired up than ever thanks to the introduction of stuff like Encephalons and Simsense Boosters but it's possible to get by without them, particularly if your GM is going BBB only. I'd go so far as to say that being unaugmented means that having a marked lack of breadth is your default state.

I see that as sort of the fun part of the character. As time wears along, the character is going to feel more and more pull to get some form of cyber. Maybe at some point they would. That's character GROWTH! Or, maybe I jsut enjoyed books like 2XS and When Gravity Fails way too much.

Remember, tho' SR is a game that still needs different players to fill different niches. You wouldn't expect a Sammy to stand up to the Magic for very long alone. A mage isnt going to survive for very long against a squad of top notch mercs. Everyone has a job to do. I believe it's possible to build a viable character that is an asset to a team, can function stealthily, shoot reasonably straight, and bring fun to the player, especially if that is the character the player wants to play. If he is trying to make himself a Street Sam without cyber, no, he isn't going to have fun. But then, that is like lamenting that the Sammy can't summon spirits. It's not the job they were designed for.

Vlad

Nanites, like drugs, are also a viable if expensive option. Which just makes rigging and hacking even more attractive. Potent infusions like Sideways (effectively giving you a Pain Editor and Combat Sense 2 on top of a flat +1 dice pool bonus on all combat tests) help out in the combat situation as well.

@vladski
Everything you point out is true. I didn't mean to question any of that.

I try to rephrase, this may sound a bit technical now but I hope I manage to express it a bit better:
During Chargen every point of cyber meant less points for skills or attributes (unless you got yourself other stuff).
Now, money and cash flow parallel. So the char with no augmentations will get huge amounts of cash with no way to spend. (Unless he is buying drones or vehicles, which is not fitting for every character and also at some point limited)

If we take your character propostion, he might be (at the beginning) around as good in sneaking around as the sam. (Maybe his skill is 4 instead of the sam having 1-2, therefore the sam has two or even 4 points more agility. But one infilitration skill is linked to intuition so you are better there)
But at some point the sam will increase the skillgroup. This is 10-15 Karma for him, but for you to be equally good again, you need to spend 25 Karma. (Or increase agility, which would be 30 Karma)

Same thing with shooting. In the beginning the sam had maybe 2 to 6 dice more. In the end (even if you get to skill 6 (+your gun)) he will be at least 6 dices ahead. (genetic optimisation, reflex recorder etc...)

Same with INI passes. In the beginning it was probably 3 to 2(drugs) or even 2 to 2. Later on it most likely will be 4 to 2.

Cram+Jazz work out well enough to boost you to 3 passes, and give you some reaction boost. Remember, drugs don't have no-stacking clauses.
Also, they're cheap. You don't WANT to have to use combat stims, but they are there if you need them. I

However, if you use all the points you're saving on ware, and not maging a magic attribute, supplementing your skills with an edge of 6, 7, or 8 does wonders. Sure, you'll be less powerful in the long run, but you have a spike of competence whenever you want it, and it will probably put you -ahead- of your more competent friends. Being an edgemonkey is pretty awesome, but less about being awesome all the time, and more about awesome when you really need it. The downside is, you can be overwhelmed pretty easily if you spend it all the time.

I would really check in with the GM first about no no-stacking clauses, it's rather fishy.



I don't think you'll end up all that far ahead. Remember that you're only "saving" 10-30BP, they can have Edge just like you, just not hardmaxed, but they also don't need to use it as often.

You're welcome at my table any time!

Never let the stats get in the way of a good story. Let the character grow properly, and you'll have something you'll remember far longer than a "Ball Of Light With Stats".

Of course, I usually start character creation by kicking my characters in the teeth, down ten flights of stairs, onto jagged glass, in their underwear, and have them thinking, So far this seems to be a good day... Then I start figuring out stats.

My problem is most people I know don't necessarily want to play high level commando teams but do want to play something better than a bunch of rookie essence virgins-- hell, if they didn't, we'd probably be playing another system entirely. Ultimately, my barometer of what is a "good" character or not is if it does what the player believes it can do without requiring me to sandbag more than usual or otherwise tailor everything to keep the character involved with the rest of the table. Thus my least favorite character concepts as a GM are the mundos and martial artists--and most especially mundane martial artists-- since that's where the gap between the game mechanics and what starry eyed newbs hope the mechanics are is often the widest. They look at their sheet and see Bruce Lee. I look at the sheet and see a guy who'd just get maimed by the first Steel Lynx I introduce. It also doesn't help that the ware vs. no ware issue is largely a rather internal struggle that most of the table will already have made their peace with one way or the other. As a character hook I honestly kinda wish it would just go away since I've ended up dealing with characters that are unintentionally disruptive for little pay off given that there isn't really anywhere you can take that thread that is dynamic and will interest the group as a whole. Your options are basically sticking "ware in them against the character's will", which is boring and kind of a dick move if done without player consent and dangling powerful 'ware in front of them until they cave and give a soliloquy before they become just like everyone else-- and I do mean just like everyone else, because unfortunately the couple of mundane characters I've had rather failed to develop anything else interesting about their character. At least the Street Samurai had a couple vendettas and a political affiliation.

Yeah, it's all very nice to say that a good GM scales challenges to the PCs, but what if the other players do want magic and augmentation? They probably will, and it would be wrong to try to stop them.

Going virgin isn't "another valid, equally good option". It's intentionally making a character that will be weaker. Don't delude yourself that the BP you save on augmentations will make up for it somehow, because augmentations are so much more cost effective than buying attributes and skills naturally, that they can come out better than you do just on the efficiency alone. (For example: drop 1 point of natural Agility for Muscle Toner 1, frees up 8BP for no change in stats.)

So you're going to end up relatively weaker than the other PCs. If that's something you have no problem with, okay then. Game on.

I think we can(should) agree that there isn't any mundane character concept that doesn't perform better without some augmentation. You can get the the same numbers for cheaper BP wise, and higher numbers than unaugmented characters can ever get, not to mention that without 'ware your money isn't working as hard to make your character better after creation.

I think we can also agree that several character concepts can work as augmented mundanes. They'll be directly worse than their augmented counterparts, but they can be successful.

One again the problem is combat. It is reasonable to assume that a player will want his character to be physically present in most runs, and it is also reasonable to assume that combat will break out. Combat makes heavy use of opposed rolls which unaugmented mundanes will also be worse at than the augmented or awakened, and failing even a couple checks in combat can kill your character.

Furthermore, it is also the case that extra IP are essential for any combat that doesn't get decided in initial surprise round. Not only can someone with 2+ IP literally put out twice+ the damage of someone with 1 IP, they get defensive options as well, allowing them to use actions like full defense or suppressive fire in their first IP, and use their additional IP to wipe out opponents with less IP than them. Edge is useful for IP(sometimes you need just 1 extra action to win a combat), but unless you refresh crazy often you do not get enough to use it all the time for IP, especially since you need it to augment rolls, sometimes you really need to convince this guard to let you through, or you have to dodge that assault cannon blast(and since the unaugmented character has lower dice pools, they need edge more for rolls). Drugs are an option, but they are semi-expensive(those per dose costs can add up), unreliable(it's much quicker and easier to turn on you're wire reflexes than to pull out a jet popper you hopefully have on hand, and inhale it while under gun-fire), and have really severe negative side effects.

Put simply, an unaugmented mundane can never be "good" in combat.

The fact is, for the kind of situations Shadowrunners find themselves in, being an unaugmented mundane puts you at serious risk whenever combat breaks out(and combat will break out). Unaugmented mundanes serve much better as contacts or sidekicks/henchmen, people who are useful, and might help out when needed, but don't actually physically participate in the main part of the actual run. Depending on your groups style, your unaugmented mundane may be more useful and less of a liability, but they will never be as useful as they could be, and will never stop being a liability entirely.

All we are talking about is a few dice difference in the DP and probably 1IP, which while being sub-optimal is hardly nerfed or dead man walking territory.

Let's look at an unaugmented mundane sammie vs his augmented counterpart. Both have soft-maxed AGI and 1 ranged skill at 6 and Unarmed Cbt at 4. Augmented sammie has cybereye smartlink, unaugmented sammie has mirror shades smartlink. So far, so same.

Augmented sammie can take WR2 or SB2 for 3IP. Unaugmented sammie takes drugs when he needs the IP boost for 2IP. Net difference 1IP. On the flipside, augmented sammie has taken a hit on resources, and in the case of WR2 might have problems if he ever has to go through a MAD scanner in uptown situations.

Augmented sammie takes Muscle Toner 2 for the AGI boost. His DP is increased by 2 compared to unaugmented sammie. On average that's 0.67P difference in damage per shot. An edge for sure, but hardly OMG unaugmented sammie is soo nerfed he should be full of lead territory. Augmented sammie takes Restricted Gear and MT4, now we have a 4DP difference which translates to 1.33P difference, with the augmented sammie having taken 5pts of his 35pt +ve Quality cap as well as the cost of the cyber.

Final scores:
Augmented sammie (SB2, MT4, 28K cybereyes) has ranged DP of 17, unarmed DP 13 and 3IP.
Unaugmented sammie (mirrorshades smartlink) has ranged DP of 13, unarmed DP of 9 and (w/Jazz or Cram) 2IP.
Unaugmented sammie also has net 5BP of +ve Qualities and 220K worth of shiny toys (or 44BP) to do other neat stuff with.

Conclusion:
Unaugmented sammie sub-optimal? Yes. Unplayable? No, at least not as far as I can see.

Your argument seems to not be about augmentation, but rather about how extra IPs are essential for combat. There are many character builds without extra IPs. Also, depending on the game, extra IPs aren't always essential. Some games emphasize combat, some don't. In games that don't emphasize combat, your statements are not very applicable at all. I'll admit that many games are probably run like this, but not all games.


Cram is 10/per, not expensive whatsoever. The amount of times you will use the drug, vs. how many bullets are fired and their cost...drugs are crazy crazy cheap. Speed issues are countered with auto-injectors. Side effects aren't really that severe, and can add some good RP potential.


Wow. You're saying there's NO place in a SR team for a character that isn't "good" at combat, defined by you as having multiple IPs. You seem to have a pretty narrow view of how to play SR, or as it's called, "have fun".

I think maybe the most productive thing to do is list stuff that an augmented character might not be able to afford (at chargen) because the costs are higher than usual, or he's already blown his X times restricted gear on other stuff. There doesn't have to be an underlying concept, that is added later by the selection of stuff you're getting.

I'm going to go ahead and suggest:

Milspech armour. It's vastly situational, but at least it's something to keep you alive.

Except you're leaving out the implications of Initiative, defense and soak pools, which is why people were talking about mundanes being OK snipers earlier but not good front liners. It's a simple matter of costs: the more things you need to be good at a role, the farther behind you fall-- the much maligned script kiddie hacker is a good fit for mundos precisely because you don't need to spend much of anything on attributes. By contrast the give and take of combat brings into play multiple attributes as well as things like gene tweaks, Reaction Enhancers, armor implants, the possibility of a Pain Editor, platelet factories/, Gymnastics aug stacks, Reflex Recorders and the option of taking a tweaked cyberarm w/ gyromount, armor & nanohive in lieu of Restricted Gear and Muscle Toner 4. You won't have every possible good mod on your sheet, obviously, but you can definitely bring enough advantages into play that you can curb stomp Captain Normal and the mook squad without too much trouble.

Except that you are leaving out that a normal can have a 12 Initiative (Mine Does), Base Ranged Defense of 8, Attack Dice Pools of 12 (Firearms) before Tacnets, so give it a 14 w/Tacnet (And reduces Range bands by One Category), Melee Dice Poools of ~10, And ~15 Dice to soak (10-11 Armor and a Body of 4). Oh, and he always can go first in the first pass of combat. These are useable stats. The ONLY thing that is lacking is multiple IP's, and these are cheaply provided through Drugs (Drugs with minor side effects/drawbacks at that). So, WHY is this character useless?

Oh yeah,
~14 Skills at 10+ Dice
~17 Skills at 6-9 Dice
Currently and Edge of 2. And Human. The Build has a few points remaining to spend, so the Edge will likely go up at least one point, if not two.

All useful for a Mecenary Character in one capacity or another. Captain Normal he is really NOT.

An unaugmented character can be capable. He will likely be a SLIGHT bit behind the augmented characters, but then again, he may not as well. After all, the Original Mr. Lucky Build only had 5 skills (IIRC). I would say that this build is FAR and away better than the much touted original Mr. Lucky Build, as he does not have to rely upon Edge, at all, to function in the shadows.

EDIT: Not picking on Mr. Lucky at all, he was just the first thing that came to mind.
2nd Edit: I still prefer a little bit of augmentation for my chracters. The Above character is just a thought exercise, as I will likely never play him.
3rd Edit: If you cannot tell, I prefer my characters to have Functional Dice Pools in the 10-12 Range. That is why they are where they are. The Dice pools are without Gear Bonuses of any kind, except for the Smartguns, which will raise the pools by a point or two when implemented.

Because he sounds kinda shitty. I mean, you went right to the Initiative value--which, admittedly, is the easiest thing to be competitive, even if it is expensive-- and then started harping on other skills about as quickly as possible. Likely because beyond that there isn't much a mundane can do to layer on combat advantages aside from getting a dose of lotus flower, which is admittedly kinda fun.

But he isn't; He just does not have 20+ Dice in anything. But he has 30+ Skills all from 6-12 Dice (Before Gear, for the most part). He is very functional, in a lot of ways...

In Combat, the character throws 13-16 Dice for Firearms (Dependant upon level of Tacnet). He has Initiative 12 (Before any Drugs, which may also provide additional Passes). He Goes First in the First pass. He reduces Range penalties naturally (No need for gear) so he gains dice at the longer ranges with no expenditure of resources. He has versatility in the various Combat Arms packages, and is capable of firing ANY Weapon on the battlefield. He can pilot any Combat Vehicle you will ever see on a Battlefield or above it. Operationally, he is pretty damned exceptional, for a combat character. Any Special Forces/Special Operations Unit would gladly have him on their teams, because he can back up any of thhem, and still has skills that many of them may not. And he can even spend the evening with the Socialites and not embarras himself.

What more can you ask?

Are we counting each combat skill as if it is a real skill for some reason? I'm assuming so, and if that is true, just picture me shrugging.

Just showing that he is FAR from Useless or Imcompetant, and will likely give any "Shadowrunner" a run for his money. Yes, even the Specialists.

The question if the spezialist (using Karma so you do not have to deal with different costs) is better than the generalist depends very much on your GM.

I remember some computergame which was based on "the black eye" a german pen and paper game.
The most feared situation in the whole game was traveling through a mountainpass during winter. Because it was the only way, a character could permanently die.
And everything depended on one roll on climbing.

So true, if your GM always goes for "you can only hurt yourself in your spotlight, but the spotlight burns hot", yes the specialist is much better of.
But if he is just letting you follow a loose storyline, this might not be the case that much.
Because now it can happen very fast that "do or die" depends on the streetsam making a influance test. Yeah, Charisma did nothing for your attack pool and picking up the influence group would have been a waste of points...

My last samurai had 3 passes, 5 Edge, 14 initiative, and 21 dice & a gyromount with a Supermach, 11-19 to defend (depending on where you stand on Synthacardium and Reakt cheese) and a ballistic soak of 20 without milspec armor. He'd clean up in that fight.

Every time we go through this I'm boggled at what everyone else at your table must be playing. I can't wrap my brain around the size of your dice pools (16- across the board, often in the 12 range), the length of time you've been playing that character (zarking forever), and how you're still going first with an initiative of 12. I swear you once said you had a street sam at your table and still a 12 init goes first? I don't get how. Do the other characters not have near the same karma?

I'm sure you consider your experience evidence but as far as I know you're the only one here who has experienced your personal experience and the only person here who understands it.


The generalist I post here as a bare bones, easy to play, basic character for newbies would clean up in that fight. And he's not meant to. He's meant to contribute, not kick butt.

First: Interestingly Enough, I am rarely play the most powerful (DP Wise) character in the group.

To the meat:
This one is really very easy... The character I just talked about (up thread) is not quite done yet, he is a Thought Experiment. However, it is not all that hard to get to dice pools of 10-12 in a LOT of skills (Especially with Karma-based Character Generation using the Errata). Specialties play a large part here. Extra Gear does as well (That gear that actually gives boosts to DP's), Augmentation and Magic also helps. It is relatively easy to get 10 dice in play (as an aside, I tend to not try to approach the 16+ DP Range, especially at Chargen, as it is never really necessary), and since I prefer breadth and depth to the skills selected, I tend to obtain a very large number of them, and try to get them to Professional/Veteran Levels. My Cyberlogicain has 83 skills (320 Karma). The Mage I am playing has about 40-45 Skills or so (200 Karma), the Thought Experiement Above has 32ish Skills (0 Earned Karma), and is not yet complete.

As for going first, even with an itiitative of 12? There is a Quality called Adrenalin Surge that allows just that, unless someone else has said quality or spends Edge to go first (they resolve in Initiative order at that point, for those so afffected, and yet, still ahead of everyone else). So, it is trivially easy to go first. We do have a Street Sam at our table, his initiative usually resolves at around a 18-20 (Sometiimes a bit higher if his roll is exceptionally lucky). and yet, the character with the quality would still go first, and right out of Chargen.

As for the other characters, they are all on about the same footing at our table. There may be differences from time to time, and that is a result of a character death or other situation, but for the most part, the characters are within 10 karma of each other unless they have missed a large amount of sesions.



No, What I consider is that it is possible to create an unaugmented character that can compete at a table that does not have a full team of Super-Optimized Specialists that throw 20+ Dice. It is really not all that hard to understand. WIll he bi viable in a team where everyone else has 3-4 IP and 20+ Dice in their primaries? Probably not. But that is not the point. Not every table runs that way. And for those tables that are a little less powerful (Average Startign Character DP's of 10-14 in primaries), the character that I am experimenting with will work.

My "Experience" is understandably anecdotal, but I do not think that I am unique in this regard, even here on Dumpshock. Many people have commented in this very thread that an Unaugmented character is a viable option. And I stand by that statement.

Starting without ware on a char willing to get augmented can be great because it allows for rapid development within the game. Get 10k¥ and 4 karma, buy another skill and increase Agility by 1 while paying the rent for a month.

I think unaugmented mundanes can be viable, if not optimized. The biggest problem with the "every resource point takes away from skills and Attributes" argument is this: augmentation gives boosts to skills, Attributes, and dice pools in general. Spending resources on things other than cyberware might potentially be useful, but there are only a few things I can think of other than playing a slightly suboptimal rigger or hacker. There is heavy weapons and/or military armor, having a facility for a skill such as armorer or chemistry, or having a really pimped out team vehicle. But generally, 'ware is what gives the most bang for the buck.

Mundanes can be decent characters. How good they are can depend in large part on the rest of the table. That's what you need to do - metagame (in the proper context of such) and look at the specific group.

Maybe everyone else is playing hyper-specialized one-trick combat types (note that this is usually because they are inexperienced - experienced players can have super combat ability and be good in other areas). Your character may just hunker down and plink with his pistol from cover in a fight, but he's the negotiator, the medic, the data search guy, the getaway driver, the sneaky guy, and the guy who can get them past a locked door without shooting it open.

Maybe they are playing generalists with low dice pools, and your more specialized mundane can actually hang with this group, power level-wise.

Maybe they all have optimized characters, but are experienced players who can make 20+ dice pool characters who are well-rounded. An uncybered mundane might be overshadowed in such a campaign.