Naah... I liked Gandalf...
I liked Allanon Better, though.

Okay, so I just talked to my GM and apparently we're actually going to get 440 BP to start. (I had assumed it was a typo and he meant the standard 400, but no, he means 440.) So this is what I have so far:

Human

BOD 3
AGI 5
REA 5
STR 3
CHA 2
INT 4
LOG 3
WIL 2

EDG 8


Athletics 3
Close Combat 2
Firearms 4
--Broken for Automatics 6 (Assault Rifles, which should include battle rifles--right?)
Outdoors 2
Stealth 2

Qualities:
Lucky 20 BP

Total BP spent: 425/440

...With no negative qualities picked and 15 points left over for positives. What do you all think?

I see you went hyper-lucky. … Not much in the way of skills, though. Mechanically that might be fine, but is it appropriate for military men to have a bunch of 2s? Nothing in Influence at all, with your Cha 2/Wil 2? Robo-grunt will comply!

I'd grab Armorer, even if it is 1 (+2 Rifles). Assembling a rifle takes a little skill and training, and the mods for easy breakdown etc call for an Armorer test. Beyond that, just fun skills to round yourself out: parachuting (jump school), automotive mechanics (a class in high school), etc.

That scenario is never really all that fun. The first and foremost problem in my mind with he scenario as it's laid out, knowing so little about the situation i'm going to be playing in it's impossible to build not just a character, but a character concept. The GM might as well furnish pregens.

As to critiques on the build: I would sacrifice a point from reaction to get body 4. Body 4 means you can wear pretty much any armor in the game comfortably so it is a bit of a sweet spot. Personally I also never have a charisma and wp or 2, but that's almost entirely a flavor thing. At the very least moving a point from somewhere to will nets you an extra box on your stun track.

Well, if I took the standard 35 in disadvantages, I could pull off a rank of the Influence group, Armorer 1 (Rifles), and maybe a point in Body as well. That would leave me nine more points to play with... Hrm.

Adding that to the 15 I reserved for qualities, that's 24. I could also bring WIL up one to get that extra stun box--440 BP, so 220 attribute max--and then have 14 left to round things out, say a quality or two and two specialties. What do you all think?

No?

It's stated that those with magical ability make up less then 1% of the population, So, at best 1 to 101, though I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say 1 for every 150, out of sheer assumption that the books would state less then .5% if it got much further. Far fewer are those who can control it. Let's assume far fewer means one out of every 4.

That puts an extremely liberal count at 1 for every 600 people.

Then comes the nature of shadow running itself. Arguments can be had either way, that being a magician would make you more or less likely to run the shadows, and both would hold a fair amount of traction. The main sticking point however, is that desperation and lack of other choices will account for a percentage of those who go into the field. Given that magic is something that is harnessed (and often passed on) as a communal tradition, desperation and lack of other choices fade away, meaning a magician isn't 'Just as likely' to turn to running as a mundane.

Back to the OP : Could always take the latent awakening/emergence qualities.

What in the heck are you talking about? 1% is by definition 1 in 100, not 1 in 600, 101, or 150.

I have to respectfully disagree. I have played a variant of this scenario a couple of times in the past, and it is always fun and challenging to creatively figure out how to get out of those situation with extremely limited resources. The times I have done this type thing, we had our usual character, but they had their equipment taken from them. This variation allows you to build a character that will work for this situation. let you try some new things. Get out of your comfort zones.

I also think this is better than pregens, because the player is still free to make the character that will work for his play style and also maybe try a few things in the game that he would not have otherwise tried. Maybe these new things will get added to his future regular repertoire.

tl;dr, you ;dr'd. Got it.

I would increase your body. your in the military the likely hood of getting shot is high. armorer skill for sure. you should get a point or 2 for throwing weapons( given the era, grenades are going to be very effective from stun to smoke). you need first aid- first aid is a must have in this situtation.

You should have some kind of heavy weapon skill. prehaps even 1, it will happen frequently in a military campain so that you dont want to default.


Last but not least pick a specialist group, your niche in the group besides combat ( Electronics, Mechanic,biotech,cracking, influence)

other than that, it's pretty good.

Except we don't know that's the situation he's going into, that's just the assumption people are making (unless i missed a post) the GM could be shooting for just a high competence ganger campaign. He might be wanting to run the team as the Third Stret Saints. Making people make characters for a situation they know nothing about is a poor exercise in my book, whether or not you restrict it.

Just so you don't feel left out

Sure, that just means you need to round the char out a bit more than usual, as you don't know what might happen, which is, incidentally, life. You should have extra points since you aren't allowed to buy gear or magic, so you should have extra to round out a bit. If your GM is worth his salt, he will be challenging your team with things that don't fit into your exact team build anyway, even if you have access to all resources. I don't see how this is terribly different.

I'm not sure how you can EVER make a character that will work perfectly for any situation the GM throws your way. The key to any 'run is taking what you have and making it work for the situation. Sometimes that's easier and sometimes it's harder. At least in this case, the GM is giving him a clue as to what he can expect, in that he doesn't need to worry about gear or magic. Just make a build that can easily adapt to that kind of situation (i.e.: Can make his own gear, or either doesn't need it. And have a variety of general skills.)

I would chop your Edge in Half (a 4) and get rid of Lucky, personally. *shrug*
Atlettics, Outdoors, Firearms all at 3's, as a Minimum. Stealth.CLose COmbat could stay at twos.
More skills Like Parachuting, Heavy Weapons, Demolitions, Thrown Weapons (Grenades) and Diving, to be more truly rounded as a Soldier, though not everyone has all those skills. .
But that is just me.

Okay, so! I've finally managed to talk to everyone else and figure out what's going on there. Based on roles taken and my personal preferences, I've decided that I want to go the face route here. I asked the GM about it; he said that having a soldier that emphasized/specialized in social skills would work well.

Which means that the last build needs some adjustments.

Where do people think I should start? This character is going to take less of a "point" role, so maybe some of the combat skills...?

In military parlance, that's called an "officer."

You only actually need social skills if you're a major or higher.

~Umi

My suggestions

1. increase your body
2. increase your charisma lower your edge.
3. get rid of lucky
4. consider "blandness" or "first impression or trustworthy and outdoorsman, martial arts
5. get the 4 ranks in influence
6. get throwing- you need grenades
7. you need first aid- everyone in the team should have- you can assist one another
8. put at least 1 point in heavy weapons
9. 1 point in pilot ( pick a vehicle type)
10. take a point in parachute

If your end up more of a spec-ops group, then social skills will be used a lot more than just as an officer. In which case you may want to invest in a few languages, ettiquete. And lots of seduction...a girl in every port as the saying goes...when your behind enemy lines you can "drill" the local ladies (or lads) for information.

Drill them, eh?

Reminds me of Monty Python...

~Umi

Yeah, I'm definitely getting a spec-ops sort of feel here. I'm really reluctant to spend on parachuting since I'm honestly not sure if we're going to do that. Then again, I suppose you never know...

Where should the points for the Throwing and First Aid come from?

if one of the characters had been an MP, you could legitimately fit a bunch of investigative skills.

Lucky is a good call for sure. 8 edge is far and away the best use you can make of the BP - once you've maxed out the amount you can spend on base attributes, with no gear and 440 bp, you're buying skills and qualities - but instead of having tons and tons of skills, having OK skills and the edge to succeed when it really matters will pay off more.



Can you only spend 200 bp on attributes? Or 220 (given the 440 bp available?)
Assuming 200:

OK, you want to be a face.

BOD 3
AGI 3
REA 5
STR 2
CHA 5
INT 5
LOG 2
WIL 3

Edge 8

Would be my suggestion. Charisma matters the most for a face, and Intuition and Reaction are the next most important attributes for everyone. You can't really get away with less than 3 body or willpower (you want odd amounts for boxes, and less than 3 is really asking for it). Strength and Logic do little to nothing for you but I'm assuming you don't want any 1s. Agility would be nice, but that's 200 bp. If you can spend 220, up Agility to 5.


You've got too much invested in being mediocre at an enormous amount of marginally useful things.

Close combat is just not going to help you as an unaugmented mundane human, and I'm honestly not sure they teach soldiers to swordfight. Maybe just Unarmed there.

Athletics is probably worthwhile.

Firearms 4 is really overkill if your GM is letting you split skill groups. Eight ways of rolling agility+skill to inflict damage is totally unnecessary; the army probably does teach you how to use a variety of guns but they probably don't teach you Firearms 4. Maybe, like, 2 for realism and all that, and then break it to be good with one type of weapon. I'm assuming your GM is letting you break skill groups; if not Firearms 1-2 and Heavy Weapons 4-6 is also an option.

Stealth group is a worthwhile purchase and I'd probably try to be better at that.

Outdoors is pretty niche; you can probably get away with 1.

The things you are missing:
Influence 4 (obviously)
Intimidate
Perception
Contacts?

I definitely wouldn't bother with throwing. SR grenades are pretty worthless as thrown weapons.

First Aid is useful but I'm not sure I'd be putting points into it unless you have spare.

In this context body 5 is worth more than edge 8.

Lucky cost 20bp there are better qualities

In a military scenario with no mages, you must have first aid, there is no getting around it.

Smoke grenades, flash bangs are very useful. Also if the Gm uses war, which sounds likely, they fix a lot of the grenade issues.

Perception is needed.

A lot of contacts doesn't seem to fit, since it sounds like the character would not have a chance to build them up yet

It's not really 'is 8 Edge powerful?', just 'is this a good idea for a fun, friendly game?' That kinda thing can piss people off, hehe.

Taking a full combat turn to detonate is what really kills hand-thrown grenades in SR.

Airburst ftw.

Airburst only works with smartgun grenade launchers... not thrown grenades.

Thrown grenades only take 1IP to blow, not a full combat turn. That's the timer mode and other times can be programmed for things like booby traps and the like.


See page 324.
They can come with command detonated as well. (pull safety pin, throw grenade, if you like where it ends up... free action to blow it. Nasty surprise since you can spend free actions on other peoples turns to blow it when someone picks it up to throw it back).

They can also come with a contact detonator.



To the OP... another way to go is cavalry... if you're in the army that means either helicopter or say tank gunner. Either route would be an eventual in to rigging in the SR1 sense. (SR1 riggers weren't really about drones, they were about plugging directly into the tank/vehicle). But the skills which come with that directly translate into drones as they become available. Even the comms techs abilities eventually turn directly into hackers. (drones initially were more of a hacker thing IIRC).

Even not going cavalry, taking a few ranks in Gunnery is a good call.

I won't say too much about your Attributes as you have already had a lot of advice there. BOD 4 so you can wear an armoured jacket without encumbrance is a good one, as is raising WILL to 3 for that extra stun box. Having good Initiative (REA and INT) is good, but is it so necessary if you are the team face (as opposed to gun bunny), who will definitely need high CHA as well?

Focussing on skills, I would drop 1 from each of Outdoors and Athletics (to 1 and 2 respectively) - unless you are planning on Gym Dodging a lot, these skills might not come up so often, and you can use your high Edge if you really need to. I like Firearms 4, although you could lose a point (you are the officer not the gun bunny, after all) if you need to as you are breaking the group anyway. I would try to raise Stealth to 3 as you are probably going to be using those group skills quite often. I would also drop Close Combat and take either Unarmed or Clubs (you can use a melee hardened gun as a club, and even if you don't have one you should be able to improvise something as a club more often than not). This should net you some BP for:

Influence 4 (you want to be the team face)
Intimidation 4 (ditto)
Perception 2+
First Aid 1 (you could specialize in CombatWounds)*
Heavy Weapons 1+ (for working that grenade launcher) ... and not bother with Throwing because you will (hopefully) have that Grenade Launcher
Armourer 1 (for cleaning/repairing guns and armour)*

* Bear in mind that your Edge of 8 will give you flexibility to default on skills like Parachuting or Diving if they come up, and can help mitigate low skills if a lot of successes are absolutely necessary. Assuming you keep your Edge of 8, you want to concentrate your high ranked skills on things you will be using often (I would presume Firearms, Influence, Stealth, Perception, Intimidation and perhaps Heavy Weapons).

If after all that you are still struggling for BP, you could consider dropping Lucky and/or soft-capping Edge to strengthen your core competencies - Edge 6 might be plenty if you are rocking 4's and 6's in your core skills.

... or local ladylads......

well, if your in places like Thailand....

But seriously, dropping close combat completely doesn't really fit in a military setting, especially if your a spec-ops group. Sure your not going to be running around with a sword most likely, but you will still be expected to be able to fight with your survival knife/bayonet. And lets not forget that the Victorinox Memory Blade is standard issue of the Swiss army (which is essentially a sword). Unarmed combat is standard, and everybody loves a good rifflebutt. But that said, if your being allowed to break up groups in creation, I would just take it at 1 and pick one of those to take up higher if you so choose.

All of your physical stats should be at least 3 if your in the military (you should be at least slightly above average in everything because of your training regimen).

Other than that, with your character's concept in mind, you have 2 major design options: lucky or not so lucky

If you want to try the lucky route, I would go with Umaro's advice. drop some from your firearm group and automatics. say 3 in the group and take the automatics skill 2 higher. With an agi of about 5, you'll be at 8 dice, 10 with an automatic, and 12 with an assault rifle. When you need a great shot and all you have is a pistol, you can add 8 more edge dice.
And pick up the influence group (obviously)

The problem with that build is that it doesn't leave you a whole lot of BP to round out a lot of skills, and without ware/magic to up your dice pools, your gonna be looking at 5-6 dice for skills that your at 3 attribute and 2-3 skill ranks...thats not very much and you may find yourself running out of edge, even with 8 edge points to spend.

If you drop lucky (20BP) and drop your edge to say 3 (65BP) you'll get back 85BP to spend on more skills and attributes.

When I first saw this thread I was beginning to imagine a batch of Homeless, Sinless guys starting out at a level where they saw people living in the gutter as the upper class.

Which could really work as a game if they all realise that because they literally have nothing to lose they would be willing to take the big risks.
Scrounging, jury-rigging and street smarts related skills and edges would be valuable. Heck with the right rolls you could dig up a few Barrens Specials out of some dumpsters, find some discarded electronics that can be repaired and have a few contacts in low places and you're in business.

Of course now that I know this is a military campaign I can reccomend one idea that works with or without gear or magic.

Sargent Bilko

The perpetual face, capable of wheeling, dealing, conniving, swindling, bamboozling and procuring the gear you may need... or not even need but want.

There go Riggers and Hackers. Both are too dependend on their gear - and for riggers, it's really important that they have the right gear, specifically for them.

There, too, goes any samurai except a gutter-punk thug. No gear = no augments.

Which is basically what you have to expect: nothing but gang-level punks with pistols, maybe a shotgun or cheap SMG.


"Don't play." That's my thought.

Pretty much what I said. When Pax and I agree, it generally means we're right.

Could always be a rocker.

This is actually one of the few, few, FEW changes I actually like in WAR. Grenade timing on 139..
Basically standard semi-smart grenades(all nades have wi-fi by default) blow up in the next pass after they were fired. A Free Action for Changed Linked Device mode lets you manually blow it up, kind of like a manual airburst you see in vidya games.
Otherwise, the '3 second timer aka next combat turn' rule kicks in.

It actually improved both grenade timing and direct fire.

Yeah.

If I wanted to run a less-gear-optimised game? I'd just lower the ceiling on both Money and Availability. If you can only have 100K and no single piece of gear can have an availability higher than, oh, 9 ...? Yeah, that cuts the higher-end, most-optimisable gear right out of the game ... yet the player remains in charge of what their own characters do or don't have. If their image is a shotgun-toting Ork, they don't wind up with a knife-and-pistol-packing Ork instead.

If I wanted to restrict magic and the like, I'd just put a cap on Magic and Resonance, and maybe increase the cost of the requisite Qualities. Quadruple the cost to be a Magician, Adept, or Technomancer, then cap Magic and Resonance at 4, and yeah ... you're going to see fewer weaker characters in those archetypes.

Then, limit skills - shave a whole point off the maximums. So instead of "one skill at 6 or two at 5, the rest 4 or less", make it "one skill at 5, or two at 4, the rest 3's or less". Or be especially brutal and make it "one at 4, or two at 3, the rest 1's and 2's".

Put those three in combination ...? Wham, low-power campaign.

(You might also consider shaving 1/4 of the beginning resources right off the top, too - e.g. a 300BP game, rather than 400.)

It's been posted before that he trusts his GM, the game is early in the Sixth World, and the players are a bunch of military folks.

If your only piece of advice is to not play, then why are you posting in this thread? I've been enjoying the discussion regarding this sort of crazy limitation. Really interesting myself (and thanks for the link Bishop).

How many times do I need to repeat this. GRENADES HAVE NEVER GONE OFF IN THE NEXT COMBAT TURN.

War changed NOTHING. It's right there in the main book. Always has been. Dating back to SR4 and continued in SR4a.

p155. Timing Grenades "detonates on the next initiative pass using the initiative of the tossing character".

p324. "They may come with a built-in timer to detonate after a preset amount of time (usually 5 seconds), a motion sensor to detonate on impact, or a wireless link set to detonate on command."

Nothing you just listed was changed by war at all.

The only bit might be the range and time to target bit... but GL's have never gone a kilometer so that optional rule for how long it takes to reach the target is null and void. (also that rule makes no allowance for guided weapons, and explicitly nerfs them). Don't get me wrong... I've done very long distance shooting a combat turn to go a km is great rule for a sniper rifle.... but the rule utterly falls apart for guided weapons, and provides no allowance for leading the target or any way to hit a moving target that's manoeuvring at all.

The only other rules for indirect fire are in arsenal.



Pax & all4big:
I strongly disagree... a military character doesn't need to start with rigging bits. Especially in the time frame. The game is set just as magic is coming back. Plugging directly into things is just on the bleeding edge of technology by SR timeline. Simply having the skills and the will to accept the first generation of implants makes the character a prime candidate for the necessary gear for free.

Similarly deckers are just on the very fringes here. Having the necessary skills is a good prereq for getting the kit. And more to the point getting good kit. Since the character isn't buying it but the military is providing it to them to do their job.

Not that I saw. Was it in some other thread? Regardless ... I responded to the questions posed in the OP.


So, what .... only people that agree, are allowed to comment at all?






Characters in a military unit? Just after the awakening? Well see, that detail isn't part of the OP, and would tend to change one's expectations regardless of rules about gear.

I agree with this part. Why not make a high-school football player? Or a vending-machine repairman, or an accountant? Or an olympic athlete (they are still anti-augmentation, I think)?

Heck, he could make a college frat-boy.

Or possibly an old-school survivalist (no point having cyber after the collapse, after all).

Or possibly a game-show fanatic? Lots of knowledge skills there.

EDIT: Hmm, definately military folks, then? I'd go with supply sergeant. In uncertain times, he's the best equipped to be comfortable.

Read the OP's post #26 (top of page 2). If you post on a thread you can't be bothered to read, your opinions are worse than useless.

The "don't play" comment is fair opinion stated once, make it and move on to another thread. All4 made it twice? three times?, and it was getting kinda old. The OP stated explicitly that he trusts the GM to make it a fun campaign, was looking forward to the challenge and asked for advice on what to build. Negative advice such as "Don't play" is not really relevant to him, but if that is how you feel about it, make your point and move on.

No, I didn't. And no, I will not feel compelled to read an entire multipage thread before I am "allowed" to post a response to something within it.


Newsflash: I am not All4. Heck, s/he and I don't even particularly like each other.


Even so. I've had GMs I trusted to do almost anything short of walk on water (and would have given even THAT claim a chance). And yet, I've still said "no, not my cup of tea" to a couple of their proposals for games.

Trust does not have to be blind.


I have now spent more time responding to objections like yours, than I spent making that very point, and then moving on.

Think about that for a moment.

I stated it once, and then reiterated once to show that my mind hadn't been changed, at which point you jump all over me for not "toeing the line" and acting like the whole thing is the best idea since sliced bread. The most recent post was just pointing out the fact that since Pax and I don't get along AT ALL, whenever we agree on a matter, there's generally a very good reason.

As to the constant quoting of his 'trusting' this GM, as Pax mentioned, trusting the GM does not necessarily turn a bad idea into a good one (and quite often leads to getting into a very disappointing game that started from such a bad idea but got off the ground because of said 'trust').

It's probably been suggested, but the "Latent Awakening" quality might be fun to play with. If this is early on in the Sixth World, that could be cool: I'd stick with being an Adept though, if you were an early Magician you prolly won't be able to learn spells from anyone.

I'd try to go with a Combat Engineer of sorts. Get the Mechanics group, Armorer, Explosives, Heavy Weapons and so on. You'll be able to help no matter what the situation is and even though you use a variety of gear, none of it is exactly out of the ordinary for a soldier.

You are perfectly entitled not to read an entire thread before posting on it. I would not necessarily recommend it though, as you will look foolish the if you completely missed relevant information (such as the OP's clarification that the campaign is a military one) ...


I never mentioned anything about "toeing the line", just that your pretty negative and biased assertions (to paraphrase, "the GM is going to royally fuck you!") added nothing to the ongoing discourse. You had stated your case and had started repeating yourself, it was time to walk away.

I also never said I thought the whole thing was the best idea since sliced bread (for the record I find campaigns where you have to choose a "military background" or a "law-enforcement background" quite strait-jacketing), I simply got on and gave the OP advice I hoped he found useful.

I don't know the OP or his GM, but given the early no-magic pre-augmentation (or proto-augmentation?) theme, I have a feeling that the OP and his squad may find themselves at the sharp end of the Great Ghost Dance or something ... which I for one would find way cool.

Personally to me it sounds like i'm just going to get my ass whipped regularly by magic. And if the events are already predetermined i'm stuck playing for a loosing side.

Which sounds more bitter then it is really intended to be, but eh.