Hello everybody, I've been lurking and reading here for a bit but just got registered so as to jump into the discussions. I've been thinking about ways to take advantage of the natural benefits of trolls in their "off type" roles. Reading through the troll combat monster thread was interesting but it ended up getting into really specific stuff, and I'm interested in any and all ways that people have found to make being a troll an advantage in interesting ways. Troll mages, riggers, faces, technomancers. I'd like to hear about them all.

I'll start it off with this aspect of a troll mystic adept - you can get some ridiculous bod + will rolls. Base 10 bod, plus 4 from Improved Physical Attribute, and base 6 will, plus 4 from Improved Attribute [Willpower]. Not only is it more dice than a dwarf can get, it's easier because Focused Concentration can allow you to keep your Willpower boost going whereas a dwarf would require a Force 7 sustaining focus.

Things that you roll Bod + Will for? Using Dead Man's Trigger, Insomnia rolls, Scorched rolls, standing up when injured, resisting the Infection power, resisting toxins, physiological addiction tests, resisting overdose damage, resisting a Fichetti Pain Inducer, resisting stun damage after using an adrenaline pump (natural bod+will for this one), resisting fatigue damage. And the most important two - healing stun damage and resisting drain from adept powers. 24 drain resistance dice when using Adrenaline Boost or Attribute Boost.

I think that you can take advantage of this to make a troll mystic adept who functions as a (not 100% optimized, but absolutely still effective) mage while being able to abuse the hell out of Adrenaline Boost, has the potential to use Attribute Boost to take his strength to 9 if needed, even to combine Adrenaline Boost and Attribute Boost [Reaction]. Throw in some alchemy along with Quick Healer, some ranks in Rapid Healing, and R2 Symbiotes ('cause cerebral booster R3) to really take advantage of your just plain stupid (30+ dice) stun recovery rolls...

So! How do YOU like to abuse trolls?

My preferred method of abusing Trolls is to wield a reinforced Tankers Crowbar, preferably from surprise.

Do runs till you have several million Nuyen, lay out a line of Novacoke from New York going westward and see if can make it past DC?

I recently attacked it from the angle of "how rounded a character can I build using the trolls strengths as dump stats and play to their weaknesses"

To that end, I present to you "Moves" Jagger, Hipster Troll Face Adept Who Can Dance

I mucked up the lifestyle costs, if I get him into a game will sort out.

Grew up in the ork underground, runt of his litter, directed his time and talent into acting and playing mediator. Has spent time as a barman (gave that up when his allergy to alcohol became apparent), tour guide, dance instructor, DJ and actor. 

Despite what the rest of the world says, trolls aren't monsters. His dad taught him from a very young age to treat women as princesses. And that's what got him into trouble in the underground and why he doesn't live there anymore - a certain person took advantage of that and pinned some questionable actions onto him. Path of least resistance was to leave and try and make some dough doing what he does best - talk. 

Priorities

A - Skills (46/10)
B - Attributes (20) 
C - Troll (0), thermographic vision, +1 reach, +1 dermal armour, 10% increase lifestyle costs
D - Magic (adept, magic 2)
E - Resources (5k)
Stating karma - 25

Qualities

Mild allergy to alcohol +10 karma 
Code of honour - chivalry +15 karma

Exceptional attribute -14 karma [charisma]

Attributes

Stats after priorities

Body - 6/10 
Agility - 4/5 
Reaction - 4/6  
Strength - 5/10 
Willpower - 5/6 
Logic - 3/5 
Intuition - 4/5 
Charisma - 5/5 
------
Edge - 1/6
Magic - 2
Essence - 6
Ini - 8

Skills (14 free knowledge / language points)

Skill Groups

Influence - 6
Stealth - 4

Active Skills

Con - 6
Pistols - 4
Impersonation - 4
Performance - 6
Gymnastics - 3
Running - 3
Unarmed - 3
Blades - 2
Computer - 2
Hardware - 2
First Aid - 2
Perception - 5 
Pilot Ground Vehicle - 4

Knowledge Skills

Seattle City Knowledge - 3
Seattle Who's Who - 3
Wine - 3
Art - 3
Fashion - 2

Adept Powers

Improved ability (negotiation) - 2 (1PP)
Kinesics Level 2 (.5PP) +1 per level to resist social tests and tests to read emotions i.e. judge intentions, assensing or truthfulness. 
Voice control Level 1 (.5PP) heaps of stuff around mimicing and controlling and +1 per level for social limit

Contacts

15 points to spend + 1 karma

Gear (10 karma spent)

Commlink, the 5k one
Gun, Browning Ultra Power, 650
Armour, Mortimer of London Berwick Suit, Armour 9, increase social limit by 1, -2 conceal, +1 dice pool bonus if wireless 2.6k (from run and gun)
Armour, Form Fitting, Armour 9, concealability -6, 1.3k (from run and gun)
Other sets of nice clothes (for wearing on top of form fit) - 0.5k
Middle Lifestyle - 5.5k
Trodes 70
White noise generator rating 6 300
Fake license to carry rtg 4 800
Fake SIN rtg 3 7500
AR Glasses capacity 2 with image link and ear buds 275

Total 24,495
Available 25,000
Remaining 505

Starting cash 1,300
Total starting available 1,805

Limits

Physical - 5
Mental - 5
Social - 7 base, 8 using voice control, 9 when wearing the nice suit. On average rolling 11 dice for attack social tests, 12 if wearing the nice suit. Plenty of room to move. Rolling that +2 for resisting.

Condition Monitors

Physical - 11
Mental - 11

This post reminds me of how I sometimes wish the Metavariants were more diversified, and that different variants of a specific metatype would cater to different build types.

The only real example of this in my opinion is Harumen, who have enhanced Agility compared to normal Dwarves and make for great infiltrators, which is something of a subversion of the typical dwarf builds and tropes.

As is stands, though, Trolls in particular have pretty crummy Metavariants - you essentially get to choose between Extra Strength Troll, Anti-Magic Troll, Bark Skin Troll, or Extra Body Troll. Basically you can either tank more damage in one form of another, or hit stuff harder - how very stereotypical.

To be honest, pretty much all of the other metavarients are just as bad.

For Elves you've got Extra Pretty Elf, Extra Sneaky Elf, Extra Reach Elf, and Asthma Elf.
For Orks you've got Angry Ork, Hungry Ork, Scary Ork, and Animal Ork.
And poor ol' Humans only get Circus Sideshow Humans.

Dwarves have the best metavariants, with Anti-Magic Child-Dwarf, Agile Monkey-Dwarf, Non-Stumpy-Legged Dwarf, and Swimming Dwarf - but that's still pretty lackluster overall.

~Umi

Mystic adepts in general are a pretty poor option. To be good enough to do what you want effectively, you end up spread way too thin.

That said, I've seen some experiments on the self-buffing mystic adept, and in SR4.5 they looked really good on paper. They look even better in SR5, where you can skip right past the Force limitations by using Reagents. You can also use both Focused Concentration and rating 1 sustaining foci to keep your spells active without penalty, so you can have a lot of buffs going at once.

If you go this route, Attribute Boost is going to be superfluous. Besides which, the Drain on it is not a problem, it's one of the powers that you shouldn't take past level 1. But with all your attributes boosted as far as they'll go, you can make an insane tank character.

If your goal is to Tank, Sure.
I actually liked Mystic Adepts in SR4A (One of my longest running characters was a Mystic Adept). They look good in SR5, but I have yet to actually sit down and mess with them all that much.

See, I never look at mystic adepts as any kind of an even mixture of mage and adept. The power gamer in me tends to see them as either 90% mage with some PPs spent on powers that will help, or 90% adept with a little bit of defensive/healing magic.

If I was actually making a character like I talked about in the first post, I would probably only end up with 6 PPs ever. The adept part would strictly be for +4 bod, level 6 Adrenaline Boost and .5 PP of whatever (combat sense, improved potential, whatev). So you just end up with a mage who has super maxed body and the ability to add 12 initiative score with a free action every combat turn and only getting any drain on the very worst of rolls. Naturally in a very long running game you always have the option to grab another PP or two as you go along if you decide to.

In Shadowrun 4?
Maximize Attributes, forget about skills, get skillwires/move by wire and skillsoft expert driver.
You can and will be the ultimate Swiss Army Knife Jack of all Trades Master of none Character.

Or make him a really athletic guy.
STR factors hugely into athletics like climbing and running and jumping, so you will be very good.
And if that's not good enough, you can still hit stuff very hard.

Other than that?
Nope, not much you can do with a Troll that anything else would not be better at.
Under SR3 rules, Trolls were kings of Close Combat and Soaking all of the Damage.

That changed massively under SR4 because somebody did not like Trolls being big, strong and tough.
So they took that away without giving anything back to them.

To be fair, though, the Troll in SR4 was still big, strong and Tough, capable of withstanding things others could only dream of.

Compared to SR3?
Nope, total sissy.
Because of how the damage now works.
Under SR3 there was no nonsense about physical becoming stun damage when it was less damage than armor, it just was easier to soak then.
Less realistic you say? i say fuck realism, you want to play realistic characters, you get a human with no ware, no money, no magic and no attribute or skill above 2 or 3.

Weren't there Formori, the pretty trolls without the extra armor? I really don't remember, and I'm away from my books.

The problem is, for the most part the adept focus still needs the same dice pools as the spellcaster, in order for his spells to be effective. Healing, for example, really benefits from a larger dice pool. Defensive tricks might as well. What you can get away with is self-buffing: you can cast at a low Force and use reagents to ignore the limit, then lock it into a low force sustaining focus/spam Focused Concentration.

With the spellcaster focus, you basically are creating a standard mage with a few adept tricks up his sleeve. You can build him as a standard spellcaster, so you don't need really high physical stats. The adept focus, not so much, you really need his physical stats and high mental stats, plus good magical skills. It costs a lot.

Apples and Oranges...

Yes, My Troll, Spike, was a BEAST in SR3. Conversion to SR4 made him a bit more cautious, but in comparison to the other characters, he was still a Beast.
Yep, that sounds like my Human Mercenary in SR4A. No Augmentations or Magic. 50+ Skills. He is a BLAST to play. And now that he has some karma under his belt (about 60) he is really shining.

Really depends upon what your Focus is, though.
You can do a really good Occult Investigator with a 3 Sorcery and 2 Adept mix. Mine used that build and he was really awesome.

Yeah, I disagree that the adept needs much of a dice pool for him to have spells worth it. It's easy and cheap to get to where you can throw 10-12 (14 with a specialty) dice for spellcasting. Heal 3-5 boxes and then throw a medkit on top of it. There are plenty of spells that are quite useful with only that 3-5 hits range. Heal, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Increase Attribute/Reflexes, Oxygenate, Resist Pain, Stabilize, Levitate, Light, Magic Fingers...

Races are meant to be stereotypical, that's as it's always been. From the sounds of it you seem to be more interested in what races do to the narrative than to mechanics. This could be pretty easy to simulate with some tweaking. It would involve essentially making all the races virtual changelings with a tag at the end.

Actually, I'm talking entirely about mechanics - narrative is up to players and the GMs.

My complaint isn't so much with the stereotypicality of the Metatypes available, it's with the lack of variety. Metatypes are already essentially just specialized expressions of humanity, so what's the problem with having sub-specialization within a metatype? I don't care that all of the Dwarf metavariants are still stereotypically Dwarven as compared to Humans, but I do care that only the Haruman is in any way substantially different than a normal Dwarf.

Part of the appeal for me with Metavariants is that they are variants of a given Metatype. They are supposed to be different somehow, even while still being very similar. Harumen do a great job of this. Hobgoblins? Eh... not so much. (They're essentially Earthdawn brand Orks with their unique trait of suffering "Gahad" in all but name.)

Now, I'll grant that the other part of the equation is the Mythology aspect. It's actually really cool to be able to play something as obscure as a Koro-pok-guru, or even just to play as more familiar legends like a Cyclops, or a Satyr, or a Minotaur, or whatever. Thematically, they're all interesting choices. But my complaint is that mechanically, they aren't. (Unless you consider being forced to suffer the Distinctive Style negative quality in order to play a Mythologically inspired character to be an interesting choice.)

I guess I just like more options. I don't mind that - for example - Minotaurs in particular are barely any different than normal Trolls, I just kind of wish there was some new Troll Metavariant that did differ more substantially.

If there were some variety of Troll that had a bonus to something Trolls aren't normally associated with - perhaps, say, Willpower? - at the expense of a portion of their usual physical bulk and toughness, that'd make for both an interesting Thematic and Mechanical choice. They'd still be stronger and burlier than normal Humans, they'd just be slightly less physically impressive than a regular Troll, and slightly more mentally durable.

~Umi

That's easily done with a mystic adept, if your focus is spellcasting. If you're mostly a magician with a few adept tricks, you can easily get solid magical dice pools.

However, the reverse isn't true. If you pump up your adept abilities, you can't afford to do nearly as much for your spellcasting abilities. Adepts used to be known as physical adepts for a reason: most of their abilities are physical in nature. So, to make a good adept, you need good physical stats. But to be good at most magical skills, you need good mental attributes. Trying to do both spreads you way too thin.

The whole point is that you don't have to do much of anything for your spellcasting abilities. Start with Spellcasting 6. That's it, you now have a variety of effective enough to be beneficial utility spells. 9 to 13 Spellcasting dice out of the gate. You never need to put a single point of karma into the Spellcasting skill from there, though picking up a Force 3 or so Power Focus down the road wouldn't hurt.

Are those numbers for real? A mostly Adept focused MysAd throwing around 12 dice for spellcasting before specialization? Holy balls! That's a far cry from the previous edition!

In order to get 12 dice before specialization in 4E, you need to Chargen-Max your Magic and blow the only Rating 6 skill slot you get at chargen on Spellcasting. (This leaves you with 0 Adept Power Points, by the way.) I mean, I knew MysAds got way overbuffed in 5E, but are you honestly telling me that it is that bad? That a MysAd with their primary focus on the Adept side of things can actually toss around a dozen spellcasting dice easily and cheaply, when before that was literally impossible?

Cripes, this new edition just keeps getting stupider and stupider.

~Umi

Well there's no limit to skills starting at 6, so you can start off with Spellcasting 6 + Magic. Mystic adept means starting with at least 3 Magic, up to 6, and potentially Exceptional Attribute for 7. Thus, 9-13 dice with nothing invested beyond 6 starting skill points. And later on you can get a Force 3 Power Focus for only 4 karma more than taking Spellcasting from 6 to 7, bringing it to 12-16 dice not including any boosts to magic you might have gotten. With a specialization, 14-18 dice.

If you want to go even more min/maxey on it, just putting a single point into summoning gives you 1 + 3 + Magic, so 7+ dice with the Power Focus. Summoning a Force 3 spirit (so it has an optional power) would be rolling 7+ dice vs. 3. 9+ vs. 3 if you specialize in a spirit type. Even more magical utility for the cost of a single, measly skill point at chargen.

Now, mystic adepts DO have to buy their PPs with karma at chargen. So you start off with more versatility and less pure adeptness, and as you go along you get more PPs through Initiation.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but trolls are priority B (0 special) or priority A (5 special). you technically cannot make a priority C troll (if you've read the other troll threads, you're probably quite aware that I don't agree with that cost, but that's the official cost).

I think this is my favorite post in a long time.