Without the booster, you drop from 5IP to 4IP. Not a gigantic loss. Not "make or break".

I would suggest that the Multi-tasking power of an Adept could benefit a Control Rigger, as an extra free action to use in any non-combat situation that the rigger is directly involved in (control rigger would NEVER be directly involved if they are an off site rigger) also since they are likely using AR quite often, not being distracted is helpful at times.

Now, see, that one I can readily grant would be of immense value to any Rigger or Hacker.

I still wouldn't consider one without it to be "not good enough", though.

Not quite. It's more like Batman, versus Bat-cyborg, with more strength, more durability, twice the reaction time, and so on - paid for by making the base stats slightly weaker, even though they are actually stronger after being augmented. See, the problem is that augmentations give comparatively cheap boosts to everything, including dice pools. A lot of times, the guy with, say, muscle toner: 4 and a suprathyroid gland will have more points to spend on skills from his savings on Attributes, and have higher dice pools for those skills because of those augmented Attributes. So it's not a case of a fire axe versus a swiss army knife. The mundane character is flat-out inferior, purely mechanics-wise, in most scenarios.

The game is not designed to be fair to unaugmented characters. They are playable, but "self-imposed mechanical punishment" is a good description of them. Their disadvantages are mainly mechanical, so roleplayers shouldn't be discouraged from playing them. They can even be effective (tactics make a big difference in Shadowrun), and they won't always be competing with optimized builds, either. I have seen augmented or magical builds that were spread too thin or otherwise weak.

I wouldn't consider a non-augged character "not good enough" for anything, however, depending on the player that they are running with...the character may not go out of his way to keep them safe unless they had Immense value to the crew (note: some of my characters are total asses who would put a bullet in the head of their entire team for the right price)

Technomancer:
-Threading command to 12+
Echoes:
-Macro: do 2 Matrix actions at once
-Multiprocessing: like Multitasking
-Mesh Reality: Hot-Sim VR and walking around without -6 to all things

Exactly. Like i posted in OPs character viablity thread:

Lowering your AGI from 4 to 3 gets you 20 Karma, that is 50.000 nY -> you could buy Muscle Toner 2 for 16.000nY / 0.4 Essence, Muscle Augmentation 2 for 14.000nY / 0.4 Essence and a used alphaware Reaction Enhancer 2 for 20.000 nY / 0,6 Essence. For the loss of 1.1 Essence, you gained 1 AGI, 2 STR and 2 REA.

Going further, if you reduce Body and STR to 2, you save another 30 karma. 10 Karma for Restricted Gear (Suprathyroid gland), 20 Karma for 50.000 nY. For another 0,7 Essence and 10% higher lifestyle costs, you now gained another +1 to AGI and REA, and have 5000nY left.

Now, if you go even further, and reduce REA to 3, you save another 20 karma -> 50.000nY. Alphaware Wired Reflexes cost 22.000 nY and 1,6 Essence, bringing your essence down to 3,05, leaving you an extra 28.000nY + 1 IP.

In total, you lost 2,95 Essence and pay 10% higher lifestyle costs for a net gain of +2 AGI, +2 STR, +3 REA, +1 IP and 33.000nY or 13 Karma and 500nY. If you take used bioware and used alpha wired reflexes, the essence loss is 3,5 and you gain another 48.500nY or ~20karma back.

... and not an at-start legal character, not with Echoes already.

As for post-start? Cash instead of karma, and maybe some build skills of the character's very own, can arrive at:

Singularity Battle Buddy Basic
... Response upgraded to 7 (from 5)
... System upgraded to 7
... Hardware optimised for Command (+1 bonus)
... Nonstandard Wireless Link 6 (also on all drones)
... running Command 10 (Optimised 3)
... running ECCM 7

That's 11 dice, base, before skill and Codeslinger. Only one less than the technomancer - and without any Fading, nor any rolls needed to start up Threading. Nor, by the by, with the -2 penalty that threading will impose on EVERY action that doesn't use Command.

1 die less for the command rigging stuff ... for no Fading or sustaining penalty? I call that an even trade. As for the rest, hey those're cool ... but when was the last time you saw a Technomancer running TacNet as acomplex form .... alongside Telematics Infrastructure and Tactical Satelltie Mapping? 'cause those'd fit just fine on that SBB Basic, after all. As would the Nonstandard Wireless Link modules, all R6, to make it even harder to even FIND the drone nodes, let alone hack into 'em.

...

See, that's my entire point: being sans augments, sans magic, and even sans Resonance doesn't mean a character is automatically "not good enough".

What it does mean is, you will need to put some effort into finding other things to be good at.

Batman doesn't try to win a weight-lifting contest with Superman, nor a foot race with the Flash. He brings his especial skills, abilities, and resources to the table, instead.

Only if you weren't already at your 250K¥ maximum. There's a reason I've focussed on Riggers for my counter-examples - a Rigger can easily blow all their money on Gear, rather than Augmentations of any sort.

That, and, it's one of the areas where raw attributes aren't terribly useful in themselves.

That is why i picked OPs char as an example - he only uses 25.000 nY, and hast stated in another thread that his char is out of money.

We're no longer discussing solely the OP's character, though. We're discussing the entire system, globally.

Well, from the looks of it, you are discussing Command riggers.

I don't think so. Mundanes without heavy surgery work and magic, not born orks, elves etc. are still the great mass of humanity. Though I rarely participate as a player, I'd enjoy the challenge of showing the cyborg supermen and archwizards how it's done!

Still, with regards to augmentation: Only the poorest of joes in the planet of slums don't have a little work done, Augmentation mentions how most people go for some cybernetic senses like eyes and ears, and how skillwires are a requirement in many places. If you go with the standard 400 BP, it's hard to portray those lowest on the rungs of the sixth world. Also, most Shadowrunners grew up in regular hoods before the Crash..

What I'm trying to say is, being "baseline" does involve a good deal of toys and perhaps also a little surgery, so it shouldn't feel like cheating. Try to read William Gibsons sprawl trilogy - on top of being a good read, 50% of the Shadowrun setting is based on it (if not more), and the protagonists have a little something: a background as a hot shot or some buggy 'ware they squeeze by on.

Ed: If you need an in-game concept apart from poverty and tech-suspicion, consider a deep-green hippie or eco-terrorist. Even today a lot of people buy into the primitivist ideology: That technology and civilization are inherently evil and should be combatted. In the sixth world, with an awakened Gaiasphere at your back, and a generally more nihilist portrayal of life, such views are widespread.

It's the slowest-moving target to show that there are at least some niches that an unaugmented, nonmagical, non-resonance character can better than adequately fill.

I see, and what standard would "adequately fill" be?

For the purposes of this question, let's assume that yes, there are certain niches that an unaugmented, nonmagical, non-resonance character can better than adequately fill, but can an augmented, magical, or resonance character surpass the standard of "better than adequately fill" or "better than adequately fill" other niches besides? I have not done a dedicated study of this, so I can only go by personal experience and my experience tells me that in general, if a mundane can fill a niche, the augmented character is likely able do the same and that could well be his secondary area of expertise.

How about: "Perform related tasks with sufficient competency as to be worth the money s/he gets paid for it".


I'm not sure what you're asking here.

Is it "could they do better with augments / magic / etc" ...? If so, then well duh, of course they can.

But "best of the theoretical best" is not where you draw the line labelled "adequate" ... unless you're willing to admit thatyour standards are unreasonable, unrealistic, and even perhaps irrational.

I'm going to present a counter example to the mundane hacker.
The chromed up hacker gillette.
Little to no investment in being a sammie.
Add in some custom cyberlimbs.
her mediocre physical stats turn super human, aswell as increasing her durability drastically.
Add in wires, suddenly not only her combat abilities are higher but her AR hacking aswell.
Add in skillwires and suddenly her complete negligence of combat skills turn into veteran expertise.

She is precisely as good at hacking as the purist, but now she can put up a fight aswell.

You guys sure know how to derail a thread.. I think this is three threads in as many days that have turned into long slapfests around what are largely either misunderstandings or a matter of taste.

I'm not trying to backseat moderate here, it just seems like every five threads someone reads a single post and pounces on it way beyond just recognizing that different strokes fit different folks..

Best of the practical best is where I think the line labelled "adequate" should be drawn and which I have been using in this thread... unless you are willing to admit that your standards are second rate, subpar and at best mediocre when compared to mine.

Welcome to Dumpshock. Enjoy your stay, you can check out anytime you like...

Real creative.. I've been here three years, and it's not always being shat up by the likes of you.

Have a nice thread, now..

Only 4? I expected you to have lurked for much longer.

This particular discussion is frequent in MMO communities and I'll do my best to explain the dilemma.
Almost every RPG game system is based on numbers and mathematics. As such there will be an undeniably best way to create a character.
With Shadowrun it's a system designed around and balanced around the notion that you're either using technology or magic (As I stated earlier, even the original creators say this)
You can choose to be using neither, but doing so you're undeniably choosing to be mechanically worse.
Some argue that when the choice is between being numerically optimal and not being numerical optimal, there isn't really a choice. Because you choose to be worse.
Yet you get people that will argue to the high heavens that it's their choice to play the character the way that they want to, even if that choice directly makes them less powerful.

Now there isn't really a failure condition in Shadowrun in the same way, which makes the lines all the more fuzzy.
The notion that willfully restricting yourself with arbitrary nonsense will only hinder you from winning (a very common notion among professional players in everything from chess to street fighter) kinda fall flat on it's face, when there's not just a single clear cut "win condition".
As such while an unaugmented mundane certainly isn't the optimal option, it's existence is justified by the nature of the game.

That's no where near as clear or well formulated as I would like...
It will have to do.

More useful than what, exactly? If 12 Dice will suffice, and I can get there with no Augments or Magic, why is 15 Dice MORE useful? It is actually pretty wasteful, in that regard.

If I can get an unaugmented character with an Initiative of 13, WHY would I need an Initiative of 17?
1 IP is useable. And there are ways to obtain a 2nd IP without having to resort to magic or ware when you absolutley MUST have a 2nd pass.

Your entire position is Subjective, since it will change from table to table. *shrug*

What?!?

How exactly can a thread be derailed, by a discussion which is precisely on the thread's topic ...?


... if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, there's little reason to suspect it's a rhinoceros. *shrug*

Arguably, a "mundane" is still using technology. Just, not the kind that is surgically implanted.

In SR4, you no longer must have a cybernetic implant, in order to gain the full and unfettered benefits of a Smartlink. You no longer must have a cybernetic implant, in order to go into full VR and hack into some corporation's secure computer systems. Contact lenses and 'trodes cover each activity, respectively.


Do you accept hugs from complete strangers ...?

I'd like to add an anecdote, by the way, to that sentence: sometimes, it's about the differing perspective of an unaugmented character.

For an example, look at Ghost in the Shell, the series more than the movies. Major Kusanagi Motoko, a full-body cyborg in command of a heavily augmented team of black-ops specialists, went out of her wat to specifically recruit a completely unaugmented police detective. (I forget the guy's name, dammit ...!) And the reason was, explicitly, that she wanted the added and divergent perspective he would bring to the team. The very fact that he was unaugmented, was in itself valuable in that it provided all of Section 9 with an additional point of view - which, coupled with his Police training and experience, made him an asset "despite" his lack of augmentation. A lack, by the by, which he could and did "make up for" with non-augment technology ... and tactics. And probably very, very, VERY good medical insurance, hahaha!

But anyway: in the ensemble-cast approach most RPG campaigns take, it might profit the group as a whole to have someone unaugmented around. Yes, even if they're only 80% or 85% as purely-mechanically optimised for their niche on the team. Because their lack of augmentations gives them an IC point-of-view that the other characters may lack.

And even more importantly, it produces roleplay opportunities between the characters.

The guy is named Togusa, and he is "left home" a few times when bullets start to fly (at least at the end of GitS:SAC)

An unaugmented mundane is always suboptimal, but whether it's suboptimal enough to be a problem at your table depends on your table so trying to argue about that is largely pointless.

Command riggers are the least suboptimal type of unaugmented mundane. Compared to an adept rigger, you're going to be out Multitasking and 2-3 dice on your core skills. If that's a small enough amount that it doesn't matter at your table, then you are "adequate." Of course, things get worse very fast if you're trying to do anything other than just command rig and nothing else.

The reason I generally recommend against the unaugmented mundane is because for every decently constructed command rigger unaugmented mundane, I've probably seen 20 or 30 unaugmented human mundanes with average stat-itis, a bunch of skill groups at low ratings, and an Ares Predator IV.

Hey, my general preference is for an Adept. It's easier to hit those "adequately competent" die pools.

But easier, doesn't mean "only right way".

I've seen one, and it killed more things in that game than the borged out street sams.


Seriously though, Pax, you're starting to fall into the "Munchkin! Munchkin! Get thee behind me!" trap. Chill out, man. It's not that important.

And yet, if all you need for the task to be sucessful is 1 hit, the guy who has double the dice pool has suboptimized his character, because those resources required to get to that double dice pool could have been spent more efficiently in a better place than he chose to do so. *shrug*

Over kill does exist in the optimization camp. You can easily overoptimize.

I optimize my character so that they are competent (DP 8-12) in as many fields as i can get, and 'ware does really help there.

Pax, you keep going on about "viable" characters and how mundanes can compete and can be good enough.

But will you at least concede that, pound for pound, point for point, augmentations and magic make a character significantly more powerful and robust, even if neither is needed to be viable? Because that's the ultimate root of the topic.

Personally? I wish that Essence had a bigger impact. Cyberware gives you great benefits at the cost of Essence. But what is the price of Essence? Well, if you're awakened, it directly impacts your magical power. But what about if you're mundane? There's no opportunity cost to spending Essence if you aren't Awakened. It's a free resource pool that can only be drawn from if you take augmentations, and that otherwise goes to waste.

Maybe Essence needs to provide some sort of bonus to mundanes. Or maybe losing Essence needs to have greater penalties for those who go fully augmented. Suffice it to say, Essence as it currently exists only benefits augmented or awakened characters, and that's kind of a ripoff, mechanically speaking.

~Umi

I too look towards the Competent DP of 8-12 in as many skills as possible. There is no argument that augmentations do help here, but they are not required to reach that point.

I don't see why you would receive a benefit for not doing something and if you penalize over-augmentation you must penalize magical characters to maintain decent equilibrium.
Essence is there to prevent magi from double dipping. Personally Im fine with it being just that.

Sometimes I go for that range, sometimes I go for a bit more, and sometimes I go for "as many as I can get". It all depends on the character I'm making and my mood at the time--if something really pissed me off at work, I'm more likely to go for the last one. All that said, I know that I would go for less if there was a better chance per die of getting a "success".

Some of the best stories come out of failure to succeed at your task.

Maybe have have every full point of Essence be a bonus die to spell defense for the mundane character? Or maybe one die for every 2 full points to keep it more in-bounds? I would rule that anyone that is awakened doesn't receive this bonus. A little equalizer for the un-cybered and lightly cybered vs. magic.

Vlad

Null magician!
(never figured out if that was something homebrewn or actually a thing)
Basically a mundane archetype focused on countering mages by having extreme innate spell resistance and means to distrupt magic.

Oddly, the best way to counter magic is to be a mystic adept. Let's you use counterspelling with bonus dice from the Sorcerous Parry Magician's Way Adept, plus metamagics. Can hit 15-20+ dice to resist spells.

~Umi

See, stuff like that touches on one of the main issues that I have with people who play something suboptimal for "roleplaying" reasons. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. They pick something deliberately weaker, but then they want the GM to either cut them special breaks, or make the other characters weaker in some way.

If I played a mundane character in a game, I would expect to have to use a lot of cunning and tactics to make up for being less powerful. I wouldn't expect to be able to directly compete with the cybered-up vatjobs; I would roleplay someone struggling to make it in the deep end. I wouldn't ask the GM to give me special bonuses or abilities. I would be choosing to play such a character, when given the same options as everyone else in character creation.

To be fair, you've been able to use smartgoggles since at least SR2, and 'trode nets since SR1 (they being the method of Matrix use before datajacks even existed).

If 12 is sufficient but you can have 15, it depends on how easily you can get that 3 more dice. If you can get an unaugmented character with Init 13, but can (assuming) with minimal costs in either karma or BP or whatever resources spent during chargen, you can easily (again assuming, not that I am saying that it is easy) get to Init 17 but requiring augmentation, then the question isn't why would you NEED an init of 17 but why would you NOT get that Init 17? Same with the additional IP.

My entire position is based on the state of the chargen rules; if the rules change, then my position change.

I have played characters with dice pools in the high teens or above, and in my experience, it usually isn't overkill. I have gotten through those scapes by the skin of my teeth. Shadowrun is a very lethal game, and a few dice can sometimes be the difference between success and failure - or you can still fail.


The point of overkill is more of a metagame thing. It is overkill when you are so protected or overwhelming in one area that the GM feels compelled to resort to drastic tactics. So while having 40 damage soaking dice or 40 social skill dice might be awesome numerically, in practice it has only painted a target on your character's forehead. If you had, say, 25 damage soaking dice, or 18 social skill dice, you might still be able to soak most damage or win most social contests. The GM won't mind, though, because the character is not invincible-looking, and can at least potentially be challenged.

It was this thread on the other forums that put me in mind of this issue, but there are plenty of similar threads on Dumpshock. The old "Help, this character has X dice for X, he's breaking my game!" So it may not seem logical (and it isn't - also, it tends to be the newer GMs who panic over such characters), but sometimes it is best to be really good, but leave a miniscule chance of failure, so that the GM doesn't feel compelled to make one.

Not really. I think that failure makes the game dull, boring and lifeless, whereas success makes it interesting and fun.

Then your failings are simply not epic enough, tales of success and ingenuity are good. But tales of truly epic failures are the ones that retold for years to come!

No, I'm not.

I myself am a powergamer; I like tweakign the numbers around, I like eking out that last +1 or +2.

However, I am not so enamored of sdoing so that I have deluded myself into thinking that it's the only right way. Numerically-optimised or not, what matters is "does the presence of this character contribute to the story, and to the group's enjoyment thereof".

The thing is, no one was saying that it's "the only right way". You have just been saying that that is what they're claiming.

-1d for every 2 full points of Essence lost (round up), against all Social tests, perhaps?

That would model a growign detachment from mainstream metahumanity. The lightly-augmented guys with 4.5+ essence leftwouldn't feel it enough to have a mechanical penalty, but those more-chrome-than-flesh guys with the 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 Essence ratings would be feeling a bit of a sting ...

In the other thread, yeah, that was the general claim made that spawned this whole spin-off thread.