Right now, I'm trying to make a character for an upcoming game (4th edition, BTW), and I'm trying to come up with ideas for what all to put in my cyberarms. Of note, the arms themselves are synthetic, since I wanted the arms and their mods to have surprise value to them. I'm thinking some combination of Shock Hands, Cyber-Gyromounts, someplace to stash a Fichetti Security 600, and maybe some general attribute boosters. My thought had been a large smuggling compartment for the gun, but hit the snag of drawing the gun from a covered compartment. A cyber-arm slide would work better, but loses some versatility. Thoughts from Dumpshock?

is the gun supposed to be your primary weapon, or just something you use when someone has taken your primary weapon away or a situation requires that you appear to be unarmed?

if the former, go with the slide. accessibility trumps concealability, because you'll be accessing it often and by the time anyone is able to take it away from you, they've probably already seen you use it on them.

if the latter, go with the smuggler's compartment. it's more important that it be hard to detect than it is to be easily accessible, becuse you won't be using it often and the times you want to use it will likely be after someone's checked to see if you have any weapons on your person.

Sensors.

~Umi

I was planning on having the FS600 be a backup weapon, relative to a Predator 4 and a Steyr/Sandler TMP, whichever one was the machine pistol. Although, since I'm picking up a second weapon skill for variety, would machine pistols be better, or SMGs? EDIT: I've got Automatics 1 currently, specialized in MP's.

And Umidori, I was kind of hoping for a little more than a single word post. Maybe some more specific idea on what manner of sensors to pack?

Enough to set up a tacnet?

ALL OF THEM.

*twitches*

~Umi

Seriously though, just go through the sensors and pick whatever you think you might possibly, conceivably use.

Some are more useful than others, but even the niche stuff can be amazingly useful when the right moment comes. Definitely consider big ticket stuff like Ultrasound or a Radar Sensor w/ Orientation System, a Radio Signal Scanner, and a Cyberware Scanner. But also keep an open mind about more mundane stuff - cameras with all the fixings, directional and laser microphones for remote eavesdropping, olfactory sensor for a variety of tracking and detection purposes, a MAD scanner for picking up hidden weapons you don't get with the 'ware scanner above, et cetera.

Information is power. Find out as much about your surroundings and other people as possible.

~Umi

Another idea: While I see that you want to go the synthetic route for stealthy business, have you considered modular cyberlimbs?
With my current character, I went for a synthetic lower cyberarm as well, but have since had a change of mind. Now I'm opting for an obvious full cyberarm, but the synthetic one is still on the shelf... so I'm switching out arms just as needed, the synthetic one will be for the blend-in situations (with a rolled down sleeve, so people don't see the obvious stump above the elbow).

A nano-hive is also worth its money, nanites just pack so many nice things...

Why not combine shock hand with the rappeling gun hand replacement thing and the hand drone as well?
shoot it at someone, grab them, keep shocking them untill they are well done instead of rare?

Shockhands are installed in the original cyberhand. The rapelling gun modular hand replaces the weaponized one, I think.

There's no reason you couldn't install a shock-hand into the modular grapple-hand plugin itself.

~Umi

Or take a point of damage hit and just wear a shock glove on that hand if the GM deems the hand of a grapple hand to have zero capacity.

Reduced capacity certainly, but I can only see certain specific plugins being completely without capacity.


Depending on specific plugin, as well as how much of a limb it replaces, I could easily see a wide range of capacity values.

Something like a Built-in Medkit plugin, where you literally replace your entire forearm with a medkit and robotic medical tools and micro manipulators, probably doesn't have any room for any modifications, and should consider all capacity to be used up already.

Meanwhile, the Grapple Hand plugin is constructed with the gun, rope, and winch section in the forearm, but with the hand itself being an otherwise normal cyberhand. I would consider the capacity of the forearm to be used up by the grapple mechanism, but the capacity of the hand itself to be unaffected.

Thus for obvious cyberlimbs, although a cyber-forearm usually has a capacity of 10, you'd only have the capacity of a lone cyber-hand, which is 4 slots. And for synthetic cyberlimbs, instead of a capacity of 5, you'd only have a capacity of 2 - which would rule out a Shock Hand (but not Hand Razors).

~Umi

The drone hand can only take sensor mods, nothing else. No hand razors, snake fingers, turbocharger...

Putting a shock glove on it would work, though.

No one else is going to comment on the obvious? A weapon skill of only 1, spec'd for a weapon that won't be in your arm? Are dicepools of 5 standard for combat at your table, or are you intent on making a character that's a liability in combat?

Such Combat Skills actually tend to end in the 8 Dice pool range (Skill 1, Spec +2, Smartlink +2, and Average 3 Agility equals 8 Dice) at our table, and they are perfectly viable, especially for a secondary or tertiary role. *shrug*

Wow, must have missed that. Yeah, you're going to want a significantly higher skill level, especially when using automatics. If you try to use burst fire (or god forbid full auto) you're going to find yourself critically glitching more often than you hit.

[edit]



That may be the case with melee or SS/SA weapons, but the only reason to take automatics instead of something like pistols or longarms is if you intend to use a lot of burst fire or full auto--in which case a dicepool of 8 is not going to cut it. Just firing a single normal burst will drop you down to 6 dice, a long burst will take you down to 2 dice, and you can't even fire a full burst without making a longshot test. Sure, you can mitigate some of those penalties with recoil comp, but even with the best rc you can get you still won't be able to make full use of the actions and initiative passes you have due to the penalties stacking up. Add in the risk of critically glitching, and that's not just incompetent, it's dangerous.

And yet Full auto does not inflict any penalties whatsoever. *shrug*
And amazingly enough - Many MP's, AR's, BR's, and even SMG's can fire in SA mode when needed, so Automatics Skill covers all eventualities.

I have NEVER had any issues with the 8-9 Dice for a Secondary/Tertiary Combat Character, and even Primary Characters generally only need go to about 12 Dice. *shrug*

Using suppressive fire doesn't inflict any penalties. Otherwise firing in full-auto mode means either using two normal bursts at -2 and -5, one normal burst and one long burst at -5 and -11, or a single full burst at -9. That's pretty far from "no penalties whatsoever." For a guy with an automatics dicepool of 8, the only options that are even possible without sinking a lot of resources into recoil compensation or making a longshot test are to either do the two normal bursts, make one long burst, or spend your other simple action doing something else. That's not being prepared for all eventualities, it's having a gun you aren't skilled enough to use properly.

That's... wrong. Autofire inflicts DP penalties of 2 to 11.


-k

Not when you are suppressing.
NO PENALTY at all, with Suppression. It may not stage damage, but who cares.

And not when Compensated correctly either. It is easy to do, and everyone does it (which is why there are so many complaints about Automatics)

Indeed... My bad... I meant Suppressive Fire. Long day.

As for All eventualities. I can compensate an AR/BR for Short and Long bursts completely (EASILY Done), and potentially a FULL Burst depending upon gun. AND I can use it in SA mode to cover any other eventuality (you know, like Sniping). Seems pretty universal to me. Prepared for all eventualities and all that (there is a reason that people complain about Automatics being the only weapon skill needed if you want to economize on your skills). And still rolling 8-10 Dice. As for what to do with the other simple action... Aiming comes to mind. You know, like real people do. *shrug*

Again, in all my years of playing 4th Edition, that has been more than enough Dice for a Secondary or Tertiary combat roll.

Judging by the reactions of many posters to your previous discussions on "how many dice do you need", you seem to prefer lower powered games. As such, your assertions that folks don't need so many dice isn't necessarily true for all people.

Even if it is enough, many folks prefer to have MORE than they need, on the theory that it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Even if most folks drive at 65 mph, that doesn't mean they want a car that can ONLY go 65.

For example, as an inveterate power gamer most of my characters end up significantly more powerful than the games I play them in warrant. In actual play, though, I rarely go full-out, preferring to match the scenario I'm playing and the relative power level of the rest of the characters. When the hammer drops, though, most groups have been happy that I can turn the dials up to 11.


-k

So, if you rarely go full out, why bother spending the resources to get to a place you rarely ever see? There are far better things to be spending those resources on.
It is a mindset that is odd to me. I went through my power-gaming phase, to be sure, and can go back if pressed, but don't really see the need to ever go back to that style of play. Success for Success' sake is no longer the driving force behind my character creation. Maybe I am just weird... would not be the first time I have been told that.

I'm kinda with TJ on this, but only because most of my favorite character builds are super BP heavy due to my predilection for advanced character options, and that makes efficient spending incredibly important.

If the difference between 9 dice and 12 dice for a weapon skill is going to cost you 12 BP, often times it is worth it to sacrifice the extra dice to be able to use those dozen points to fit in another option or aspect vital to your character design.

And if you're really concerned about having those extra dice when you need them, put the points into Edge instead - that's what the mechanic is for, after all. Spending 10 BP for one point of Edge might not sound like a lot, but it adds up.

~Umi

The thing is, in Shadowrun 4 it's really NOT hard to get primary dicepools in the 16-24 range, a few secondaries at 10-14, and several 6-8 pools for tertiary stuff. And still have resources leftover for roleplay stuffs or whatever. You really DON'T have to make significant sacrifices to gain great power.

I am able to even build really bizarre builds with similar dice pools, like my pixie rigger adept. More "standard" builds I can probably push further.

And this isn't even pushing the extreme stat limits. None of my characters have a 4th or 5th initiative pass, for example, or more than one starting attribute maxed. (Many have NO starting attributes maxed). Those are way too expensive for what they give you. It's just that so many damn things in SR4 stack.


-k

With an ordinary character, I would agree with you.

The difference for me is, I tend to have elaborate and exotic character concepts, and I end up spending a lot of points on fleshing out the concepts themselves, rather than on making the character more powerful. If I wanted to play as "Guy In Trenchcoat No. 482", sure, I could be tossing 24 dice around, but for me, I prefer to have more unique sorts of characters.

Heck, even your Pixie Rigger Adept is still highly doable, because being a pixie itself isn't that big of a deal - you're still building an otherwise normal rigger adept, you just happen to be a pixie and that costs you some points. My stuff is... well... a little more "out there".

For example, some folks may remember my T'skrang Taildancer changeling project, and the sheer difficulties of mechanically representing the physiology of a T'skrang. Not only are most of the options that you have to take to pull of something like this expensive in their own right, they also don't exactly give you benefits quite worth their costs, and they often lack synergy with each other and the rest of the character.

There's also the fact that I tend to build "wide" with my skills, rather than "tall". Instead of a small number of skills with large dice pools, I tend to end up with a larger number of skills with more moderate pools - often because the skills make sense in terms of the character and their backstory. My Taildancer has 16 different skills which he doesn't default on, because his character archetype demands he be able to do all those things with at least some degree of ability.

For example, I know the average Runner is NEVER going to use Tracking, Navigation, or Survival, (because how many GMs actually enforce things like Navigation rolls for driving around town without getting lost?) so of course they never bother putting any points into them. But if I'm playing a character whose backstory would reasonably include them having such skills, I take them, even if I never expect to use them and am essentially "wasting" points.

So those 20 BP someone else can spend pumping up a single major skill to Rating 5? Yeah, I spend them on getting the Outdoors 2 skill group so that with an average Intuition of 3, I still manage to have a measly 5 or so dice for the skills my character should, logically, possess at some degree of basic competancy given who and what they are.

Oh, and in this specific case it also doesn't help that - again, for thematic reasons - I'm an Adept and a lot of the things I'm using my Power Points for are much, much, much, much cheaper and more efficient to get as cyberware. Not a problem in itself, but stacked on top of the rest of my restrictions, it adds up.

Granted, I fully and readily admit both myself and my characters are somewhat extreme outliers. I do personally think that too many GMs are too lenient with allowing people to hyper specialize ("Why do I need Social skills? That's what the Face is for, and I will literally never be called to roll on a Social test ever, so it doesn't matter if I can only throw 2 dice before negative modifiers!").

But I also realize that a lot of what I do is the exact opposite - I actually, literally, will never roll most of my skills, but I include them anyway - and that probably seems bass ackwards to a lot of folks.

Different strokes and all that.

~Umi

I design my characters in much the same way, Umidori.
My Russian Unaugmented, Un-awakened, Un-emerged Mercenary was sporting over 40 skills with actual Points in them so as not to default (Karma Gen, obviously). Main Skills were in the 12 DP range, Secondary were in the 10 DP range and Tertiary were in the 7-9 DP range, and Minimum DP was 4-5 IIRC. He is one of the most fun characters I have ever played, right up there with my Spider Changeling, Occult Investigator and my Cyberlogician.

Sounds like a real Jack of All Trades. Is it fair to assume a lot of what made him fun was pulling out unusual skills for all sorts of weird situations?

"It's a new prototype hybrid biotech-manatech ciphered lock system! Even if we had an expert safecracker, we'd also need someone with the proper magical AND medical knowledge to deciper the bio-arcana passkey, and THEN we'd need someone who can reset the electronics and reprogram the control mechanism on the fly!"
"Give me ten minutes and a liter of vodka and I'll have it open."

I'm personally still waiting for an opportunity to play my T'skrang, hopefully in some sort of Asian-centric campaign since I finally settled on his being from Malaysia. (Specifically he's an Orang Laut "Sea Dayak" who grew up in the floating pirate black market city of Mompracen, and due to his "condition" ended up working as hired muscle before branching out into bounty and head hunting.)

He's probably the most physically outlandish character I've built so far, and I think I'm ready to start a few more subdued projects. I have an idea for a minimal-combat infiltrator and spy, with a strong focus on disguises and outside-the-box problem solving - which probably means I'm once again going to have a whole bunch of skills, and will need to spend my points very efficiently to pack everything in.

~Umi

Not so much Unusual Skills, but Skills that would make sense for a Spec Ops Trained Mercenary with Multiple focuses (and there are a LOT of them). But yes, he was/is a blast to play. I think it is the cheesy Russian Scandawhovian accent I affect when I play him.

A Tskrang sounds interesting to me as well. Along the same lines as my Spider Changeling, who only wanted to fit in. I know he is extremely physically outlandish. It is sad that everyone tries to kill him all the time.

I actually have a player for an upcoming campaign who just recently handed me a preliminary character sheet for his own Spider Changeling out of the blue. I was and still am intrigued, and I think it could make for some interesting times.

I did warn him of the severe stigma that is associated with the Insectoid Features quality, but we hammered out reasonable ways for him to cover up a bit and he's really excited to try out something new and different.

~Umi

That was one of the most interesting aspects to me. He wanted human interaction, and needed Human Interaction, to stay somewhat connected (and sane). His trials and tribulations in regards to that were always very interesting. Sadly, even when people get to know him, they still can't get past that Insectoid features and ultimately, inevitably (Curse your expected and inevitable betrayal) try to kill him. In the end, he stays on the move a lot. But it never dampens his desire for that interaction. He is a fun character. One of the few where I actually went to the trouble of crafting answers to the 52 Questions interview.

Wow, things have picked up a lot since my build was fully finalized. To set things to rest, this character has a meat Agility of 5, with my right limb sporting enhancements bumping that to seven. That, along with a cyber-gyro and modded smartgun in my Steyr TMP, I've got a DP of 12 for what is ultimately a backup combat skill, not my primary. That would be (Semi-Automatics) Pistols, at DP 17 with smartlink.

First session was this past monday, so my ability to muck about with stats is very limited.