a) That's not a really strong character.
b) You shouldn't refuse to allow people to use really good characters, as long as they follow the rules. Don't get petulant when a player is good at character creation. Which this one isn't.
c) All tanks are very vulnerable to magic
d) All characters are very vulnerable to armed vehicles.

For godsakes. It's a game and people play to have fun.

Someone has put a lot of effort into creating a character WITH a well written background that's a specialist in a certain area. At least give him chance to actually take advantage of that.

If a player wanted a face type character and spend hours creating one, would there be someone whining "He's too good at social things, how can I kill him?" and then dump him in the middle of the jungle surrounded by dragons.

If the character is not appropriate to the existing campaign stress that point. Another character may be better right now or maybe the fish out of water thing could be fun and given that he's already put time and effort into creating something he wants to play then forcing otherwise seems a bit off.

The character itself is not unbalanced. It actually seems like a reasonably good first character (My first SR character was a million nuyen sam who couldn't spend it all and had two Mitusishi Nightskys, but that was 1st edition).

In short - play the game and let him do what he's good at. When the dust clears and the combat's over then the challenges can begin. Wait to see where the first few karma points go before condemning.

Geeking rules:

1) Geek the mage first.
2) Geek the mage first.
3a) Geek the melee specialist second if within 20 meters.
3b) Geek the shooty sam second if no melee specialist in range
4) Proceed to geek other target from #3
5) Geek the rest of them.

Ok since the last time I posted i got a much better look at the sheet, and talked to him about it. He was going for more or less along the lines of an honorable troll that manages to get himself into too much trouble all the time, and thusly got hurt, and had to keep replacing parts with Cyber to make up for his injuries.

Example from history, paraphrased and edited for length.

the cyberlegs with added armor and titanium bone lacing came from being dropkicked by a superior brawler off a roof, crashed landed into the street, broke almost every bone (pre bone lacing) and had his legs run over by a 18 wheeler.

Every week for several years he used to frequent his hometown bar and engage in a massive drinking contest, where everyone puts in 50 bucks each, and drinks till the last man is standing. He was the champ, 9 months running until he had bad pains in his guts, and the doctor told him he has cirrosis of the liver, and needs it replaced. Incomes the rating 8 Bloodfilter system. So now when he drinks, he sadly no longer even gets buzzed.

The stick and shield thing came from being a fighter in some underground gladiator type games. So did the roman motiffed armor... (This guy is crazy IRL fetish with roman stuff, like circus maximus old days roman stuff Scutum, Lorica Segmentata Here comes a Distinctive features flaw hehe)

Overly dramatic yes I know but I liked it so I let him keep it.

Picked up stealth and shotguns later on when he became more of a mercenary, smashy goon for hire.

Wants to be a legionaire or something, which is actually going to be his street name.

I like his character, I think it would fit well but like Joker625 said anything that would be 'risky or challenging' to the troll will prettymuch smear everyone else, except the rigger's one rarely used drone.

Character sounds pretty cool, actually. With the troll, you're not going to be able to directly challenge him in melee combat. What you will be able to do is make it a challenge for him to get into melee combat. Guards with SMGs or ARs are going to be a challenge for anyone. Sure the troll might take less damage, but he'll still take damage if he goes charging in.

Every now and then, throw in a hand to hand type deal (opposing physad, horned bear, etc) where he can really show off his character. Most of the time, I'd just not worry about it.

Tangent: is there any good way to activate a sackful of concussion grenades at once and then sling them down a hallway? The slinging's the easy part, it's the simultaneous activation that could get iffy.

~J

After reading that background this guy sounds waaaay cool to have in a group. (seriously). I'd let him run with it. I don't think he's gonna clean up even in combat.

If you wanna make it even more fun, give this guy a lady love. That doen't know he exists. Or better yet, the dreaded "I like you, but only as a friend."

mu-hhahahahahhaa!

The way I understand SR grenades, the 'spoon' is not what it used to be. You can now with no skill set the grenades auto-timer from 3 seconds to 5 minutes, or, hold onto the spoon and use it as a remote detonator. So, change all of your grenades to the same frequency, pull all the spoons and toss them, then hit the "button"

So would a grenade set to explode on impact still not go off until your next initiative pass? Does that mean that a knife you throw wont hit the person until your next initiative pass?

The fluff text does not state you can set a grenade to go off on impact, closest you can get is air timed from a launcher. And I'd imagine if you gave a knife too much loft, it wouldn't hit till the next pass.

BBB p 282. under Hand Grenades: "...they may be set to explode on impact, or at any time from 2 seconds to 2 minutes."

There is a troll in my group, with a strength for unarmed combat after all cyberware has been added at 18 (titanium bone lacing etc). He also has 2 cyber spurs that are dikoted...27serious anyone? Oh and he normally gets 3 actions.

I think your calculations are wrong. The bonus for titanium bone lacing only applies to unarmed attacks.

He has 2 cyberlegs. Troll size is Quickness 4 and Strength 8. To calculate Strength and Quickness, you take the average of the four limbs. So if he had a natural (bioware goes into this) Quickness of 6, his overall Quickness is only 5. Doesn't look that bad, but you mention all his armor has non-conductive, so I assume he is layering. Check the layering rules and the Quickness penalty for excessive armor. He is probably generating quickness and movement penalties. Strength will take a small hit, getting reduced to 10. With the armor/quickness penalties, I'm not sure if integral armor (limb plating, bone lacing, etc.) gets factored in or not. If so, he is, or is close to, immobile.

I'm surprised everything isn't chem-sealed. Acid eats cyber and comes in a spell or bottle. He would also burn nicely, and would probably fall through weakened floors.

Control Thoughts and Control Actions. How about levitating him a few rounds (is someone going to shoot the mage or dispel the spell and get him dropped?) and dropping him from a height? Or levitate or Control Action over the side of a building or out a window.

Levitate is probably at +3 TN…

~J

Yeah, but a lot of magicians pack it.

When you try to levitate a living being, they can use either Strength or Willpower to resist it, making tough to levitate a troll.

Control Manipulations have a threshold of half the target's Willpower (4, in this case, although it rounds down and drops to 3 when his Pain Editor is not on). And that's how many net successes you need, after the target resists. Control Manipulations are very, very difficult to pull off against a target with a decent Willpower. However, there should still be a few enemies who try, assuming that any troll is merely a dumb brute. The GM knows better, but the NPCs should not have access to GM knowledge unless it is something they would reasonably know.

Personally I agree that this is a good character. He's clearly got his own style, a backstory, and a code of honor. And the player gave him some social and physical skills. That's fairly well rounded, and as people have pointed out he's not even all that twinked.

I also would never hand out a distinctive style flaw for something like an interest in the Roman Empire. While it might be a bit more realistic, I personally encourage my players to create interesting and original characters, not guys in long coats and sunglasses that look like extras from the matrix. My games play on the assumption that in a firefight most people won't be able to give a better description of a character than "He was really tall, and had a gun." Distinctive Style is reserved for "It was a Male Troll in Drag with a gun painted Bright Pink."

And then I give the player points for coming up with a Troll in Drag with a Bright Pink Gun.

I think it sounds like quite a cool character - as long as he doesn't walk around in his armor carrying his weapons 24/7, he shouldn't be hassled by police too much either. You may want to check the average Str and Qui as was noted, to see if he's wearing too much armor.

To challenge him specifically while not overwhelming the rest of the team, use roleplaying in combination with tailored opposition.
- The security team has a new guy who's carrying the machine gun (or SPAS-22 w/explosive slugs, or assault cannon or other devastating weapon), upon seeing the troll he pees himself and proceeds to shoot madly at fullauto at the troll, and only the troll.
- Someone in the opposition has a deep hatred for trolls. Either a good mage, or a melee specialist. Say, a dwarf with cyberskates, high strength and quickness, twin dikoted Handblades and Pentjak-silat (with Close Combat for CyberImplant weapons). He should be able to reach the troll using the skates, and can then roll a large number of dice while ignoring the troll's reach, waiting for the opportune moment to use Pentjak-Silat's advantage to Called Shots.
- Bring up someone from the Troll's past - preferrably one of the people who caused damage he was forced to spend large amounts of money and hospital time to replace with cyber.
- Use the TN modifiers from Manual Gunnery Table - Size/Type of target for regular ranged combat. Big Troll? "Large critter (larger than 3x times the size of a human) -1 TN to hit... (Not canon, I know, but logical)
- Send 'em up against Humanis, Alamos 20K or other racist organisation. Have everyone concentrate their more lethal fire on the metahuman(s).
- Mage with Slay Troll spell.
- Play up the effects of bioware overstress at bad timing.
- Remember to calculate the increased power of toxins for having alot of bioware. Even with the filtration and air tank he should be vulnerable to some things.

Play him, see if you have any problems with him. It sounds like the player may actually be able to pull this off without trashing you badly.

If you want to add SOME challenge for him, but not so much that the rest of the group gets swisscheesed, use smart NPCs. Security guard may use a couple of center-of-mass bursts with that SMG when firing at your average shadowrunner... but *everyone* watches trid, and knows that trolls are friggin indestructible... aim for the head, or blow the whole mag and pray. Throw grenades his way. Use nonlethal weapons. Apply the term "bullet magnet" literally... the enormous armored object coming at you in a hallway is going to soak up a lot more lead than whatever's behind him, simply because he's so large the targets behind him actually have cover (and don't look as scary).

Geek the mage applies, of course... but when you're facing a guy down at the far end of the hallway waving his arms around and a quarter ton of angry troll bearing down on you at a sprint, who are YOU going to shoot at?

He's built to soak bullets... let him. The rest of the party will be fine, as long as you direct most of the firepower at him.

Not being able to feel anything, ever, is pretty dumb. Pain is important; it keeps you safe. So you can't be knocked unconscious? Fat lot of good that's going to do you when you look down only to discover that you now have a first-degree burn on half your body and have no idea when or where it happened.

Not to mention the possible long-term effects of that kind of sensory deprivation.

To be fair, he talked about roleplaying the character "like a junkie", so maybe it wasn't meant to be a "smart" choice.

There was a girl I read about somewhere who couldn't feel pain. She pretty much destroyed her eyes scratching them, and has had various other problems (I think she broke a leg playing once and kept on playing with it for about an hour).

~J

The character or the player?

~J

The character was a junkie, the player is a mere pothead

We often smoke as the game concludes, so he'd say stuff like "Fuck the rent payment, my character spends all of his money on a week-long meth binge. Hey, let's go smoke a joint!"

One more thing to remember: with a pain editor on all the time the player doesn't know how many boxes of damage he has taken...

That's the fun part.

~J

I guess it depends on the which side of the GM screen you're on.

With a biomonitor and display link, you can still know what your body is doing, even with the pain editor or damage compensators going...

As anyone who plays first-person shooters will tell you, sometimes you don't check your health often enough.

~J

Amen to that.

Depending on which FPS you are playing, your health aint gonna matter.

Well, yes, if you're using godmode. What other FPSs out there have non-mattering health?

~J

The oneshot kill kind?

Ghost Recon/Sum of All Fears. One shot = usually one kill.