Here is a thread with some examples of mundane builds. Overall, you can make playable mundane characters, it's simply that adding augmentation or magic would make the character better. Which is fine, since the themes of the game are selling bits and pieces of your humanity for that all-important edge over the opposition, and magic making you a special snowflake that all of the mundanes hate/fear/idolize. I've used the example before, but - Deckard in Blade Runner, constantly using his resourcefulness, ruthlessness, and sometimes pure luck, against the replicants who are all stronger, tougher, and faster than him.

In my experience, there's more than one target.
House rule I don't know the OP is using.
Because in my experience, Tacnet 2 is easy to get. Tacnet 4 is much more difficult depending on the tables rules for sensors and participants. I don't know that the OP's table will support a Tacnet 4.

As for the ending statements, I'll pass because I don't see how replying to them can possibly be productive.

That is highly subjective and has never been my experience given that typically 2/3rds of a character's points are going to go to some combination of Skills, Attributes and Metatype cost whereas without qualities 'ware is capped at taking up a highly varied 1/8th of your bp. Yes, there's benchmark and iconic augmentations like Wired 2 that will pop up on sheets time and time again, particularly on heavily optimized sheets. You can admittedly often spot what a character sheet is about by skimming their augs. But they're still less deterministic than skills, which cost more die for die and don't include oddball stuff like gastric stimulators, false front, bioware echolocation, mnemonic enhancers and smart articulation. Even admittedly straightforward and banal augmentations Synthacardium or Muscle Toners can help you avoid being a complete physical liability while still having points left over to pursue oddball skills like Chemistry, Artisan or Forgery. I hate to be so blunt about it, but usually when someone brings an unaugmented sheet to my table it's usually just a standard generalist samurai load out except they've traded away all their bad ass for the Stealth or Influence group. It's unconventional, but only in the sense that they do less than the other guys.

Or 40 BP worth of other gear.

Drugs vs. Implants: I'm having a hard time believing arguments along the line of "cybernetics eat your soul, but drug addiction is just fine". It sounds inconsistent. Either your body is a temple or it's a brothel; make up your mind.



"Sub-optimal vs. hyper-optimized": that's a straw man argument. Having some implants that make you good at your job isn't munchkinry, it's playing a character clued in to the idea of the game. It's not about "vs. hyper-optimized", it's about getting the stuff that just makes sense for someone in a dangerous profession. You don't tell firemen that protective gear is "hyper-optimized".



Snipers: we've had a lot of threads about how problematic snipers are. (Not always necessary since a lot of missions take place indoors, any other real Sam can also snipe, you wouldn't want the GM to start using real snipers with tactics against the party...) They're not ideal characters.



AR and trodes: AR is pointless if you don't use IP boosters, because IC gets 3 IPs. And trodes + (hot) sim module allow VR without implants. Get your rules straight.

That said, riggers and hackers without implants can actually work. It's possible that a lot of the hacking difficulties are more balanced for unaugmented hackers, actually.



Faces without implants or magic are quite okay. You can't hide tailored pheromones from serious security procedures, which would mean you'd lose access to some important people, which is bad for a Face. So it's not a disaster you can't have TPs. You'll probably be a human (Edge, normal looking) or elf (Charisma), and you'll have the kind of social dice pools the game system was balanced for, rather than pornomancer stats.

---

Of course, for both hackers, riggers and faces, you still need a reason why you don't augment, because they can all profit from it. But they don't absolutely need it to have a chance at survival, it just makes them a lot better.

40 bp of other gear (like perhaps a few quirky vehicle and exotic chems) often hits me as the best case scenario, tbh, but then we're typically into tech boy territory again, and usually those guys are willing to blow the 2 bp on a Control Rig or Cerebral Boosters because seriously, why the hell not?

This part of your argument is completely terrible.

You had 6 agility. Drop 2 agility (35 bp). Pay a whopping 4 bp to afford Muscle Toner 2. Now you are back at 6 agility and you have 31 bp to spend on other stuff.

Your sole argument is "you can be good enough at a role where being mediocre cuts the mustard."

Drugs can be an incredibly viable way of gaining passes and other bonuses.

Second-hand Chemical Glands are amazing essence/cost for 3-pass drugs, hook it to a cyber drug gland/autoinjector so you can control when it takes effect. The Natural Immunity quality will let you safely take a dose of a certain drug every so often, so its possible to set your body in such a zone to get optimal High Time and No Downside time in order to constantly get the bonus.
Not to mention drugs don't have no-stacking clauses(affects attributes mainly), and often help with non-fighty things, like Perception(betel) or social situations/charisma.

For example, a basic grade internal release Dopadrine chemical gland is 32500 and 0.3 essence. Second hand its 15750(3bp) and .36 essence.
A basic grade k-10 chemical gland comes out to 121000 (and 5bp for restricted gear, because its 16F). Second hand makes it 60500 and .36 essence.
In total, 76250 nuyen and .72 essence. This comes out to slightly over 21BP.

+3 body, +3 agility, +6 strength, +1 willpower, +3 IP, High Pain Tolerance 3, -1 physical actions, Cancels Berserk. The k-10 permanent berserk test never happens, because only berserk characters make that test, AND it never wears off because its a chemical gland(so no worry ing about 18stun either)
That's the kind of power you can get by going the path of the juicer. All for less points than hardcapping one attribute.

It is possible to start like that and not be a dead weight.

You will have less dices, but probably more skills. Instead of muscle toner, Wired reflexes, dermal plating etc. you just have Biotechnology 4 or something like that.
Yes, you will have probably 5 dice less in a firefight.

It only gets ugly if the rest is starting to buy additional ware, while you don't
Agility 5 is not that bad compared to agility 7. But compared to agility 9 or even 10 it tends to be "bad".

@Udoshi
At some point you start to beg the GM to mercykill you. (Rulewise this means enforcing addiction tests...)

Not really, you just clearly have an inability to see the bigger picture.


Blah blah blah. The point, which clearly went over your head, is that Mr. Augment is blowing his cash on augments. Cash is a limited resource during character creation. While Mr. Augment is spending ~200,000 nuyen on implants, Mr. Normal is spending it on the really nice gear, of which Mr. Augment can only afford a tiny fraction thereof. Or boosting other aspects of his character. Whatever he wants, because he has that freedom by not needing to invest in augmentation.


No, my argument is "making such a character is possible."

No one is saying such a character will wtfpwn an augmented or magical character. Absolutely no one. We're saying that it's possible to make a perfectly acceptable and capable character who can hold his own, particularly in certain fields. And yes, OH NO!!!, his dice pool may be 3-5 points smaller in certain situations. Stop the presses! The sky is falling! What a horrible thing! He's down one, maybe two, hits on average. The horror. How is that any different than, say, a Troll Face vs. a Dryad Face who have similar differences? Why is it only a terrible injustice when it's a normal guy?

Mundane builds can certainly be viable. But having less points spent on 'ware or Magic doesn't always translate into more versatility, because that 'ware or Magic can give you cheap skill and Attribute increases, and other dice pool boosts, to the point that you can often have higher dice pools and be more versatile than the uncybered mundane.

Other than the dubious benefit of being able to get past nearly any scanner (which bioware can usually do, too), there really isn't anything mundanes do better than magical or augmented characters. They are like elven pit fighters, troll hackers, and suchlike - not optimal, but still doable. The biggest problem I see is that it is often the newer players who will gravitate to such builds. They don't realize that they are picking something that will put them at a disadvantage, and be more difficult to effectively play.

If you really are hitting the cash cap, you could spend an extra 10 points on Born Rich and still come out with an extra 21 bp, leaving you with your choice of more versatility or being better at your specialized task.

That may be so, but if my playing is any indication, they are also the most fun characters to play.

This is going to an area where I always have difficulty. Most of my characters' "personality" is in no way reflected by their points. Maybe it's supposed to be, but often the disadvantages I play the most aren't point based disadvantages, they're simply the character's personality.

I don't see why a character has to be suboptimal to have a personality. In all honesty, I see no connection between a character's effectiveness and his personality whatsoever. The only connection I'm aware of with effectiveness is how strong the GM makes the competition.

Now if the team wants to play suboptimal characters, I'm fine with that. But to me it doesn't mean they have any more or any less personality. It's simply that they're facing different challenges than more optimal characters.

And so can the normal human. He'll always have more cash at his disposal if he chooses. Always. That's probably the strongest aspect about the concept.

And for Pete's sake, Suoq, how are you getting "you have to make a sucky character to give him personality" from anything anyone is saying?

I dunno about "hyperoptimized characters are all the same and boring".

I've pretty much made my entire RPG play history nothing but hyperoptimized characters that most folks have never seen before.

I'd like to think they're interesting.

Then again, I'm told that I minmax... differently.




-k

Agreed. I'm the kind of guy who makes suboptmal choices for flavour, then optimizes to a point. As a GM, I have a Troll Face lined up as a johnson, and he is one of the most optimized characters I've created, able to blend into many business-like situations, whether they be a casual retreat, a sport hunt, or a big-name party.

Reformed Powergamers optimize for flavor, but eat Crunch for breakfast so they don't lose their touch.

Another good example is the bodyguard type character. In another novel, written by Mel Odom, using Argent... a contact/friend he used was a female bodyguard character. She had no 'ware as she excelled in public engagement/special attire work. Her clients didn't want cybered up razor boys or girls as protection as it looked gaudy at black tie affairs and other events. That character was all natural.

Though to play devils advocate, you can slide in a heck of a lot of ware that is totally invisible so provides the discrete non-obvious razorgirl effect.

Yeah, I ran a former corp bodyguard and spider before as well who was built to be discrete but even he didn't go completely with without 'ware; it just all happened to be perfectly legal sensory and interface 'ware cyberware (Control rig, Cybereyes, Cyberears, Attention coprocessor, etc.) as well as some light bioware like muscle toners and a sleep regulator. He wasn't anything to really write home about in a stand up fight but between that stuff and some microdrones odds are he'd at least see you coming.

First of all, y'all are making a silly assumption. Namely, that a hyeprspecialist has to sacrifice anything, especially things that a mundane no-ware character can get just as easily. That's just not the case: given a 400 BP character, both can spend only 200 points on attributes, period. No matter how many extra points to spend the mundane character has, he actually cannot have higher attributes.

Now, for Edge. Edge is indeed quite powerful, but the high Edge is most useful in the hands of those who don't need it. If you're relying on Edge for extra IP's, you'll burn through it too quickly, and won't have it when you really need it.

Some triple AAA rated areas & parties can/will have astral security & bioware can be seen with astral perception (assensing test with 4 hits).

4 hits on an assensing test is a lot. For a checkpoint or random search, typically an assensor would just buy hits. It'd take 16 dice just to pick up bioware that way.

Given the oft-repeated ubiquity of headware in corporate circles I doubt a bodyguard is going to have a hard time finding work just because they've got an attention coprocessor in their cortex and a sleep regulator snuggling up to their hypothalamus.

It does, those runners are dead, playing a living character is far more interesting than playing a dead one.

Honestly, either "sully" your body with augmented flesh and chrome now, or with lead later, your choice.

I'm also going to say something right now, playing a crappy or "sub-par" character does not make you're character more interesting, in fact it usually makes your character more annoying that anything else. Thats not to say characters shouldn't have weaknesses, but a character should be good at what they do otherwise they don't make any sense. A shadowrunner isn't just a random joe who decided to start going illegal things for money, those people are gangbangers and syndicate goons(or dead). A Shadowrunner is someone with exceptional ability who, for some reason, is unable, or unwilling to use said ability for legitimate pursuits.

Shadowrunners do the most dangerous job in the sixth world, and combat and bloodshed is part of it. If you're unaugmented and unawakened, unless you have some kind of special unique skill my team needs for this specific run, you are not coming with me in any dangerous part of the run. You can be the best face or hacker around, but if you can't hold you're own in combat, you don't belong on my running team in a dangerous situation, and taking drugs and relying on being lucky doesn't exactly make my character feel any better about having to take someone who quite literally might be dead weight along.

Your character should be good at what they do, there is nothing wrong with being effective. Unawakened shadowrunners who refuse to dehumanize themselves with 'ware are like little kids complaining that something isn't fair. The Sixth World is not fair, it's nice that your character has some moral code they are trying to stick by, but it's dangerously naive.

For a good look at running without 'ware when you really should be, watch Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. There is a character who is the sole unaugmented character in an elite squad of cyborgs, and while he has useful skills, he usually holds back or doesn't participate in the most dangerous missions at all. And when he does get into combat, he gets the crap beat out of him(this happens more than once). To start he gets artificial replacements for damaged organs, but eventually he bites the bullet and does get performance enhancing augmentations, despite his bias against them be he keeps getting shot up.

Who says he's complaining? Maybe he sees it as a competition, a personal quest to excel at what he does without being a lazy, pathetic fool who can only do what he does by having cheap bits of chrome shoved into their body.

Once again, there are several concepts that work just fine without the need for magic or augmentation. And all of them are ones that don't require high personal Initiative Passes, which is the only thing augmentation really has going for it in the 2070s. Hackers and Riggers are the very top of that list. Even as awful as the baseline archetypes are in SR4A, several of them are essentially unaugmented (ie, they have implants that are completely unnecessary) mundanes. The two big ones are the Face (who only has an implanted commlink and datajack) and the Weapon Specialist (who doesn't even have so much as a dose of Cram). Even worse, many of the other archetypes have stats that can easily be duplicated in an unaugmented character with ease, despite being loaded with chrome.

As badly designed as they are, the Weapon Specialist in particular proves that unaugmented mundane characters do exist and get work in the shadows. There is only one thing -- one thing -- that they can't really do, and that's gain additional Initiative Passes with ease or regularity. Most everything else can be duplicated through technology or hard work, or is so minor in its actual benefits (2-3 extra dice) as to be negligible or offset through other means. And with options like Cram and Jazz available, even that one, major disadvantage is somewhat alleviated, at least over the short term.

I really have no idea why some of you have such a massive stick crammed up your netherholes about this. God forbid someone creates a completely viable and useful character who doesn't have any augmentations or magic. What's even more bizarre are the people talking about how impossible it is to do here, having apparently turned 180 in regards to their comments about Initiative boosters not being a necessity in another thread. XD

As badly as I would want an unaugmented character to be able to play in the same league, I have to say there is one significant hitch on the way: Point-buy limits. If the chrome guy and the unaugmented guy get 200BP of attributes, the chrome guy will be better. Skills are pretty expensive for both.And the mundane guy merely has more money for gear - so he might have the biggest van and the most drones, but that's about it.

I think it's just a basic defect of the BP system.

I think in order to make unaugmented characters not suck, you have to homebrew. Create a quality that allows lifting the limits. Put it in with the awakened/techno group so it they are exclusive, and make a downside of completely rejecting anything but deltaware.

For example:
Natural Superhuman, 20BP
Whatever random mutation is responsible, sometimes you find people who are just naturally better. Smarter, stronger, faster - or even all of that in one package. These people don't need ware to compete. They are just that good, all on their own. Their strength comes with downsides, thougth - where others can augment themselves with cheap ware, their bodies reject this. They take 2P damage per hour for every point of essence loss they incur from any kind of augmention. The only implants they can endure are cloned replacements or deltaware.
Effect: The Natural Superhuman is not tied down by the limitations of the rest of metahumanity. She can spend as many BP as she wishes on attributes. She is not limited to one attribute at her natural maximum and reaching the natural maximum does not cost extra BP - she merely spends 10 points per point. However, the value of her lowest attribute cannot be less than half, rounded up, of her highest attribute, prior to racial modifiers.

Obviously this is quicky and dirty... and I haven't run the numbers on it.

Introducing a new quality that permits higher performance is IMO like SURGE - you are not doing it as straight, unspecial mundane. Kind of defeats the purpose here.

Regarding the archtypes: they can be outperformed by chars build with The Precious alone. Hardly a performance standard. For true combat specialists, not only the IP will be missing. I would like to see an unaugmented combatant that can compete with a proper samurai. Fight guards yes, fight gangers yes, but taking a samurai slot? I don´t see that. Show me?

Eh. If you want an in-game reason to not have 'ware, just take the Sensitive System quality.




-k

I can't say I've seen the SAC version, but I guess you missed the speech in the original movie where the major (whatever her name was) explains to the unaugmented guy why he's on the team - for perspective. And then a bunch of stuff about overspecialization is a way to 'wither and die'.

In short, they wanted him on the team, he wasn't considered a liability. But obviously he has limitations, just like the rest of them did. His were just different.

I think the same explanation is somewhere in the series too. And it's an interesting explanation, too.

It's never done Togusa any favors that in addition to being the "normal" of the team, he's also the kid. He's a cop and a family man, not a supercommando combat veteran who's been in the game for decades.

He's not always left behind because of his lack of augmentations, but because straight-up combat just wasn't his thing. It's not what he got hired for, it's not where his experience lays. He's the cop, on a team composed primarily of soldiers.

The movie isn't in cannon, either with the manga(where Togusa is augmented from the starts), or the anime series(Where he is used because of his skills as a police officer, but skill gets his ass handed to him when he evitably gets into a real fight, and gets augmented by the Solid State Society Movie).



The game has a naturally superhuman quality, it's called adept. There is also SURGE and various metavarients and sapient critters that are superhuman. The idea of a (meta)human who is just better than normal humans, able to be on par with cyborgs and awakened, without using 'ware or being awakened themselves is just silly and goes against the point of a dystopian setting. If trying hard and being good where enough to make it in the shadows, they wouldn't be as dangerous(and profitable) as they are.

I understand that some characters types don't need augmentation(though referencing the pre-gen characters kinda ruins anyone's argument, the pre-gen characters suck and oftentimes break the rules expressed in the previous chapter). But with the exception of stay at home hackers and riggers, those people are not really shadowrunners. The very word "Shadowrunner" implies a certain amount of steath and B&E work, and there are a lot of things you just need to be there in person to do. Without augmentations you are at a significant disadvantage in a real fight, as your only way of getting more IP's is edge(which is temporary and could be used for other purposes), and drugs(which are more damaging than 'ware). A simple goon with wired reflexes 1 has twice the actions you would have, which means twice the damage output. Surprise may be the most important factor in SR combat, but when suprise doesn't win a fight immediately, superior IP usually cleans up.

An unaugmented mundane can take a street samurai down by ambush - there are a kazillion one-shot kill attacks in the game. Even in a non-ambush situation, there are a lot of effective tactics, ranging from subdual combat, to monowhips, to stick-n-shock ammo, etc.

Taking the street samurai role is another thing altogether. The archetypal street samurai is not only great in combat, but is typically picking up the slack for the noncombattants of the team. He needs a good mix of dodging, damage soaking, armor, powerful weapons, and multiple initiative passes to take out large numbers of mooks while also drawing a large part of their fire.

An unaugmented character would be very suboptimal for that role, to the point that you would have to min-max the hell out of him in a lot of other ways, to partially compensate for that. Say, an ork with soft-maxed Body, Agility, and Reaction, with a ranged skill of 6 with a specialization (and maybe using a grenade launcher or recoil-compensated full-auto weapon, to take more than one enemy down with his one attack), using a smartlink and possibly a tacnet, with drones backing him up with both sensors and weaponry.

Still, it might not be that fun to play even if you make it work. I like playing against type as much as anyone, but I would probably be happier using an uncybered mundane for the roles he is less handicapped in, rather than trying to mash him into a sammie role.

I think, in short, an un-augmented character IS possible as a viable concept, but it will be difficult to keep up with the abilities of the rest of the team.

The character will almost certainly have to be min-maxed to a huge degree as far as the "unaugmented" restriction allows. It should probably be only attempted by someone who is well versed in the rules set.



-k

I too think an unaugmented mundane character is feasible, but agree they would be better as hackers, riggers or faces. As noted, high edge (or a Mr. Lucky) would be beneficial. For a combat type, not so easy but not impossible.

Surprised at the number of people saying "If you don't have Agility 9 and a ranged combat skill at 6, my character wouldn't play with you.", but then again, this is DS ...

Indeed.... an Unaugmented character, while a few dice behind the augmented characters to be sure, would be, and have been, welcomed at our table as long as they could hold their own weight.

Maybe if the campaign was a street level game with it difficult to get access to any good cyber/bioware tech, a totally unaugmented character could do well in combat.

"Holding their own weight" is the tricky part. As overpowered as Edge is, you can't rely on it for everything. There's no concept that an unaugmented character can't do better than an augmented character, so even if you're dual-covering roles, the augmented character will simply have better screen time.

Hehe, yes, Adepts are supposed to be like that, but then they are magical.

I can't give you a good example of either a character or a historical person who excels at everything, but with the way the BP system works, and the limits it imposes, it's quite impossible to build one. Even a hyper-specialised mundane will have problems.

Yeah, that really does seem to be the main problem with the naysayers.

Actually, they've got a point.

IF everyone's running roughly similar capabilities, then everyone plays. The under-numbered mundane repeats the SR3 Decker problem. Challenges for the group force the mundane to wait in the car or back home. Challenges for the mundane are either insignificant to the group or in an area where they can't play.

A group that plays together may intentionally shift so the mundane can be a part - say, don't build a face with cyber or magic so the mundane can take that role. But it's an intentional compromise on a per group basis.

This is very true. But in my experience, those types of characters ARE viable. It really depends upon your table, and what the table DP's are a s a baseline. If the baseline is mid to high teens (for primary pools), then your unaugmented character will struggle; if, on the other hand, the table baseline is 10-12 DP, the Unaugmented character can reliably compete, and often with more skills than the augmented character possesses. It is a play style that can be fun, from time to time. Me personally, I like just a little augmentation (of one type or another), more often than not.

I think you're overstating their case.

It's not just the 3 points of agility, it's the 13 other build points the mundane also has to do without and either the loss of IPs, or the loss of Edge converting to IPs, or the drug question . There's a bunch of pointless sacrifices here that the OP never gave us a reason for.

The character needs to bring SOMETHING to the table and unfortunately, we're on a quest to find out what that something is with no feedback from the OP. Some suggestions I like such as "100% pass cyberware & magic inspection at security checkpoints", I haven't seen such a build fleshed out yet, but I'd like to see abilities like "Juryrigger" in it because in that sort of situation, you don't get to bring an army of drones or incredibly cool gear. The issue with that build is how well does such a character play WITH a team of cybered/magic characters. Being able to go where they can't means splitting the team.

There's always old standbys such as Mr. Lucky or a face hacker (though the OP's request for combat capable may or may not throw a wrench in there depending on what the OP actually meant by combat capable) but I'm lost on how his lack of 'ware/magic has any real meaning for such a character. One could make the same character without the limitation and I don't think it would affect enjoyment one bit.

I always wonder if there's some box to be ticked off "Achievement: Played Shadowrun character without magic or ware".

Isn't this really a thread about whether or not the Weapon Specialist from the core book is viable?

She is not. Question answered!

Only if you assume that everyone else at the table is a min/maxing powergamer. Implants are supposed to be an easy way to get good stats, yes, but the game wasn't designed around min/maxers, nor should players be bullied and ridiculed into not creating the type of character they want to have fun with just because of a bunch of min/maxers on a message forum. Especially when such a concept is viable, albeit difficult, and doubly so when the 'fluff' supports it just fine. Again, one of the base archetypes is an unaugmented mundane character. It doesn't matter that all of the archetypes are poorly designed. That's not the point.

And badgering the original poster for wanting to make such a character is really all this thread is now.

Ehhhh... so Cyberware only gives a significant advantage if you are a minmaxer? LoLz

Cyberware always provides an advantage. It provides a SIGNIFICANT advantage to a min-maxer... Heh...