I have to admit, that there is something extremely satisfying (if the hackfactor of the game isn't TOO high) to being a low-cyber, HIGH skills human. My first char was patterned after the Weapons Specialist archetype, but with less heavy gunnery skills and launch weapons and stuff, and more social skills.

Skills A, Attributes B, and resources C are very powerful. The resources will let you get an eyeware package with almost every fun toy in the book (low light, thermo, image link, vision mag 3), smartlink (this is a MUST for any nonmagical character, and even some gun-fu adepts), and maybe even some wired or boosted reflexes. You may not act first, but you will be able to have 6s in several skills (pistols, a variety of rifles, etc) and some non-combat skills can be very high too. 50 skill points are so addictive to me that I find myself really missing them at any other priority level. =D

Also, get the NSRCG program ( http://matrix.dumpshock.com/mcmackie/ ) and use that to play around. It's far easier than doing it on paper, and lets you easily switch things up.

You can get more starting bang for buck when you use skill specializations ... personally i don't because ... I'm stupid. j/k - but I like being able to specialize later in something else, but for now have a 6 in any weapon in a class (eg, ARs) I pick up. Tho i guess it 'd be more realistic to go the other way and specialize.

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With all the weapon skills, it's hard to pick a few. If you're going for a Face character, you probably won't have many skill pts devoted to combat, so you might want a rundown on those. (I'm assuming you're going for a Face.)

Pistols: Pretty much ubiquitous. Easy to get, easy to conceal. Don't have the damage potential of the other weapons tho. If you do use a pistol, either chose a light pistol that's easy to conceal, or a heavy pistol that actually does damage. The max-power actually has better conceal that most ofthe other HPs (IIRC?), so that might be a good reason to use one instead of the ubiquitous Predator. As a face, you may want to go for concealability. Hold out pistols are only useful for shooting yourself. The Slivergun 0wns, and is the most munchkin-favoured pistol ever (that you can get at chargen) - but it's not too good vs armor. Still, potentialy pretty nice.

SMGs: Still almost as wasy to conceal. Can do BURST FIRE -- which is significantly more effective than a semi-auto pistol (or other non-sniper weapon in SA mode). More damage, AND harder to dodge, IIRC. Most of the combat archetypes have this skill as theor main combat skill.

Assault Rifles (ARs): These look just like SMGs, stats wise, except that their short range is HUGE -- most any indoors, street-level, etc engagement will be in short range - compare with pistols' range. (ranges are in the first few pages of the combat chapter.) However, ARs are much harder to conceal than an SMG or pistol.

Shotguns: Aside from burst fire spas-22's (lol), I don't consider these all that useful; tho, they ARE powerful... but as a primarily non-combat oriented character (again, an assumption), you need to make sure that your shots are either harder to avoid (burst fire with great recoil compensation), or harder to stage the damage from. A shotgun round is about the same damage code as the staged-up damage from a burst firing weapon, I believe, so I'd go for the SMG or AR.

Other rifles: You probably aren't a sniper so don't bother, IMO.
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Excuse me? Shotguns are some of the best weapons IMO. But then I am biased since I do like shotguns. Lets take the Franchi SPAS-22. First off, just ignore the burst fire option since it's practically unworkable- stick to SA mode. Carries ten rounds and has a concealability equal to nearly all heavy pistols and SMG's.

And unlike SMG's that with burst fire you automatically get +3 to your target numbers, with a shotgun you get 10S damage straight away without any recoil, which makes them easier to hit with. For a starting character I would have thought they'd be ideal. You can't silence them as well as SMG's, but just carry a silenced heavy pistol as a secondary weapon if you want something for quiet work.

2 things:

1) Boosted can be upgraded without using genetech. There is nothing Canon that says you need to, but your GM may have something to say. Also Boosted is the only thing that stacks with Synaptic Accelerators, so they are more useful than you think.

2) I agree that an assault rifle is quite the all round ranged combat weapon, but I feel that if you are going to be spending your time indoors, you might want to consider a shotgun (shot, not slugs) instead, especially if you have a smartlink. Suppressive fire and shotgun choke rules are your friends.

Just wanted to say somethign quickly Sand. Welcome to the game for one, and 2ndly, the first lesson most players learn is to specialize. It's nice the character shown able to do all sorts of stuff, but in the end, you'll learn to specialize in char-gen for a certain field. The hard part is figuring out where.

Anyhows, since the examples all show Adepts and Mages, thought I'd post a cyber-type you might like and seems to fit your imagery. My wife played this character as her starting character and it was a blast for her.

http://shadowrun.i-sphynx.com/kat.htm

Sphynx

True, but that depends on how your GM deals with the availability of cultured bioware. I played under a house rule one time that only let the two stack if you bought them together (which explains why I didn't realize this earlier), but as I see it's not an official rule, that makes this a viable option. It is certainly a cheaper route to speed than wired 3 (in essence and cash). The only drawbacks are that you can't turn off boosted reflexes and the reaction bonus is smaller.

If you anticipate the campaign to last a very long time, I'd advocate boosted III at game start for a light sammie (if you're working off 400k, anyway... boosted I if you are poorer) if you're not going with Wired II. Both choices have pros and cons. [edit]Oops, forgot about the "base book" restriction for a second there. Since Synapatic is in M&M, this is only a recommendation if the GM is going to allow in other books in the future.[/edit]

Assault rifles are great all around combat weapons, but notice how I gave the caveat that it was for a game where the GM tended to present tactical situations (ie, lots of distance, cover, etc). If you're not dealing with ranges over 100 meters, shotguns are a strong contender for "heavy hitter" status (the others being rifles/sniper rifles, assault rifles, SMGs, and heavy weapons).

As I said, try to get at least a rating 4 set or above, also said they are expensive, I still feel they're worth it for the utility they provide.

Defaulting to an attribute is almost never worth it (except maybe a Troll with max body and athletics or some such).

But defaulting to a skill... there's precious few that you can actually default to anymore. I'd wager to say, out of combat, the only time one would default to a skill is a Computer ot Electronics roll. All the rest are combat or vehicle skills, combat I'll get to, and vehicle skills are just too specialized if one's not a rigger.

Now, the drawback for using skill wires is you can't use pools. Using the base book, no one will ever use a pool with most of his skills, so that isn't really a drawback.

As the character would be Mundane, without a VCR or a Cyberdeck, the only pool he would have access to is Combat.

So yes, use the skill points for Combat skills. I said as much.

But Biotech? Demolitions? Piloting a Helicopter as a non-rigger? Or any other non-combat skill the team is missing? Skillwires work just fine.

The only real advantage to an Adept is melee combat. Unless you're up against another adept, even that's overkill. Athletics and Stealth can be just as good with a Cyber character. Even though the adept may get more dice for Stealth, stealth is based on your highest-roll. More than 6 dice to a stealth roll isn't nearly as beneficial as with a skill where the number of successes you get is more important.

Going cyber though has alot of potential that you can't get with Adept powers (though you could get by mixxing the 2 worlds, the "twink" way to do things).

Sphynx

I knew I was going to draw fire for that, lol! I've never actually USED a shotgun in-game, so I can't really comment on their actual effectiveness.

Is the SPAS-22 in the SR3 core book? (I recall the original poster saying that they were limited to gear/etc in that book.)

Recoil: good point. But, a burst fire weapon where you don't care about silence can have a gas vent IV or III tacked on, and you're in the same ballpark as most shotguns.

From the BBB, the only shotgun that fits your description is the Defiance T-250: 10S, SA, only holds 5 rounds.

This is (damage-wise) equivalent to any SMG with a gas vent III firing bursts, for a single burst vs double ... however the second shot means that the SMG has +3 recoil again while the SG only has +2 ... however, it DOES carry only 5 shots whereas the SMGs carry 9-20 bursts-worth. But that's kindof a secondary concern when I notice that shotguns using flechette ammo have a 10D(f) code ... that's actually REALLY nice. Plus, when using buckshot, you get minuses to TN based on range and choke setting, I believe.

So, I stand corrected -- shotguns DON'T suck. But, they don't really seem to fit my image of a covert-ish Face type character. Shotguns don't convey a desire of the wielder to negotiate

Can you load shotguns with EX-EX rounds?

Throw in 2-4 Improved Ability [gnu of choice] dice, and "reasonably well" becomes "frighteningly well".

though, the magic loss means that you're that much weaker. =/ And, if you don't take a Geas (as it was explained to me, at least) to counteract magic loss, once you staert using iniatiation rules in MITS, you can't initiate (and are considered "burned out"). This was of course confusing to me , though.

Really? Um, okay. Guess I must have must have missed that part for quite a bit. Oops. You got a page reference so I can read up on it?

That's pretty accurate

Because other books are going to get added, that does change recommendations a little. For instance, there will come a time when you can add bioware to your character (Man & Machine), get improved skill chips (the expert driver from M&M and programing options from, I think, Cannon Companion), and the like.

If possible, you might want to try to squeeze in an alpha grade boosted reflexes III. (180k 2.24 essence) to give you an initiative boost. As a minimum, I'd invest in boosted I since that will net you an extra die of initiative (taking you from an average of reaction + 3.5 to reaction + 7... generally the difference between averaging one action or two actions) and you can upgrade later.

Also, take a look at the skillsoft jukebox item (it's in the core book). You might find it handy and it could cut down the number of chipjacks you have to have (you can read chips through datajacks as well).

[edit]Oh, and to take back I something I said earlier, the "sweet spot"s for broadcast encryption are rating 2 and rating 6. I recommended rating 4 earlier, but when you read the broadcast decryption rules, the difference between a single die being successful on the decryption test is only 2.78% whereas between 2 and 6 it is an 8.33% -- probabilities are non-linear because of the 6=7 trait of the Shadowrun rules). None of this is foolproof... a skilled user with rating 6 decryption has about a 50-50 change against a piece of rating 6 encryption... it it takes time to do, which is the whole point.[/edit]

I gotta agree on the getting of Boosted, if your main role is NOT combat.

If you have to be The Fastest, then Boosted's not the way to go - Wired II is faster than Boosted III. But, I think Boosted III is cheaper . . .

If your goal is to be medium-speed man, and have decent skills to back it up, I have to admit that Boosted is Just Fine. I'd go with Boosted 2 or 3 tho, and skip 1 entirely (1 reaction is almost useless by itself).

I USED to be a Wired-Only kind of guy (tho I admit that I like Adept improved reflexes ), but when the player I am GMing for took Boosted 3, I realized that it was actually a darn good idea. I think it saved him essence AND money, too. I think. Could be wrong.

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And Kevyn's dead-on right about the pistol. =) A light pistol will fail to do any damage to almost anyone wearing armor (6L - 4-6 power means 2's to resist damage). You're better off getting a heavy pistol. or a shotgun. Or a Roomsweeper, which is the best of both worlds.
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Or if you intend to stack in a synaptic accelerator later on, as someone pointed out earlier. As tough as it is to find a beta clinic, it's generally tougher to aford wired III (essence and cash).

Slightly mixed up there. One gives an inititive die, two is the one that only gives 1 reaction. Boosted 1 + Synaptic Accelerator 2 is by far the most effecient Essence/Bio Index speed in the game.