Ok i've been watching too many movies....but that's always good for Shadowrun inspiration.

I love the assassin type characters. They are my favorites, and for some reason, i've never been able to play one. I want to build an Assassin for Shadowrun.

The idea I had was take like the character "Jason bourne" (Bourne identity movie/books), with some thing like the new Tom Cruise movie's character Vincent.

Stealthy, but skilled with pistols, unarmed combat. Athletic enough to run, climb, dodge, jump all that stuff a good anti-hero needs. And of corse the stealth and eletronics skill to break into a building.

Stealth meets Combat I guess. (obvously prepared to sacrifice a bit in both for it to work)


Any sugestions on what I should be looking at in Cyber/Bio?

And is it even possable to make a character like that in the system?

One of this big points of many assassin characters is their ability to blend in with the crowd. Since lack of essence is so easily detectable, you are probably better off with either an adept of someone who is big on bioware. You can also do stuff like get past the security at airports and coss borders. The problem with cyberware in SR is once you get a pile of it, you are almost permanetly 'underground'.

Assassins are always massively intelligent (max out those skill points!)

Take the SOTA edge (possibly coupled with the Hunted flaw) to allow yourself some kick-ass starting equipment.

Either take Skills or Resources as primary. Resources can be spent on cool contact, wiz gadgets and other fun stuff; but the skill points are more likely to let you max out Athletics, a Martial Art, Rifle, Stealth and Pistols.

Metahuman or Magician (or Ghost forbid, Metahuman magicians!) must always be screwed on resources, because skills become a number-one priority after Race and Magic.

Probably Human. Since humans are still the most numerous race in the SR world.

From the books (Bourne ID, Bourne Supremacy, etc), the assassin wins not by brute force, but with finesse and skill and don't forget Webb(Jason's true persona) is a professor, so he's got to be helluva smart. Exceptional Attribute Intelligence, maybe. Cerebral Booster, Mnemonic Enhancer.

Of course, what assasin is complete without Enhanced Artwinkulation!

Perhaps a Connected or Friends in High Places Edge too.

What about the elf poser edge. With a little bit of disguise skills, this would give you access to 2 meta-types to impersonate.

Shouldn't that be an Elf Poser FLAW?

Whats the deal with calling "Enhanced Articulation" "Enhanced Artwinkulation" instead? Some joke or what?

Sorry to be offtopic

Vincent? An assassin?

You've got to be kidding.

Thanks for the reply.
Sounds like twink=munchkin

I've always gone human adept with a datajack and some headware mods plus Masking metamagic. Blends in well and can pass yourself off as just some ordinary guy. Take Killing Hands Moderate and a half decent martial arts skill and you've got the same damage as a standard knife that's a lot harder to detect. Any higher and it's a bit overkill IMO. But weapons skills always come way before things like that, guns and distance always beat fists and up close and personal nine out of ten times. Plus, nothing sets of security like some guy with a smartlink and wired reflexes.

And just remember the words of the master, "The rifle is the first weapon you learn how to use, because it lets you keep your distance from the client. The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn."

This is one of my favorite types of characters to play, and I almost always go with the Adept of the Invisible Way. Your critical attributes are going to be Int and Quickness, with Charisma and Will being next on the list. I tend to take priority A Skills, B Adept, C and D can be either Attributes or Resources, though for an Adept it's usually best to put Attributes higher. You got most of the important skills down, but your going to want some social skill. Blending in is critical, so skills like etiquette and negotiation can be important. Just remember that most of your skills don't really have to be at 6, I find a whole bunch of skills at 4 to be very useful, only putting Stealth and maybe a hand to hand combat skill at 6. As for powers there are the obvious like Traceless Walk, and Imp. Stealth or other key skills, then there are some to choose between depending on the flavor you're looking for, Distance Strike, Killing Hands, missile Mastery, etc.

My favorite assassin character is an adept with a lot in stealth, a martial arts style such as ninjitsu or wild cat, killing hands, and the delayed damage (silent) adept power. The latter power basically allows you to do something like shake hands with a guy or brush by him in an elevator, then go get a sandwich, head home, watch some TV, and then when the time is right, allow your little astral damage bundle to blow up on the poor fella.

-Joe

If you're going the cyber assassin route, don't forget a stepped reflex trigger for your wired reflexes: your twitchiness will give you away to experienced bodyguards well before you walk through a cyberware scanner. Disguise, Negotiations (Fast Talk), Etiquette and Intimidation are all useful skills. You'll want to go skill heavy and maybe consider Skillwires to ease the burden a bit.

Centering is very nice when you're having to do those long range sniping shots.

I'd always thought i'd be cool to give an assassin type some Headware MP and an imagelink so they could keep a picture handy of the Mark.

Perhaps, a built in cyber-dart gun with some venom sacks full of Fugu-10 or something would be fun too or they exhalation venom breath or something out of the ordinary would be interesting.

How about a seductress with venom sacks. Quite literally the "kiss of death". Perhaps too noticeable as MO though.

From what i'm hearing, you guys think an Adept would be more useful as a hitman then a Cyber/bio junkie?

Sounds good. Any other thoughts?

It depends on whether or not your GM has Man & Machine, and whether or not he allows bioware at character creation. A character with the full range of that 'ware available can be very effective, and I'm not talking about only combat-oriented characters, either.

Cybered characters are actually better for versatility. Adepts are better when specialized. An adept's starting points are enough to let you specialize in about one or two areas, such as close combat and stealth - and you can add improved reflexes, for speed, after you've initiated a few times. But if your adept starts looking like he's spread too thin, you might want to compare him to what a cybered version would be like.

Are Adepts really the way to go with an Assassin character? I can see the benifits of the adept powers, but i'm not entierly convinced they can out-do a heavy-bioed assassin.

Lots of sugestions on how to make an Adept assassin, any ideas on a mostly bioed one?

I guess I'm of a rather unique school of thought, in that my favorite hitman character was mundane, and completely unaugmented. Sure, he'd get his ass handed to him in a fair fight, but who said hitmen fight fair?

All depends on what "style" your character is intending to follow. If its stree level hits for the mob, then cyber is going to be the option for intimidation and immediate effectiveness. Likewise this also goes for ex-military or corp death machines. Heck even cyber-zombies for out-and-out, in-your-face devastation. (Think Terminator)

If you wnat to go ninja then stealth and infiltration ability is highly recommended, so probably best to go for an adept. Most likely you'll also want extreme martial arts abilities and decent equipment. (Thinking of Crying Freeman here).

Personally, the best assassin is the one you never notice or even suspect, so a master of disguise would be darn effective. Taking a load of stuff to help you identify and get to your target, and then get away again, is more important than combat skills. (See the Jackal or even better, the original Day of the Jackal).

All in all, you ought to start with a clear concept of how you want to make your hits: demolitions? ritual sorcery? sniper rifle? poisons? unfortunate transportation accidents? orbital cow bombardments?
Once you have that, then you can create the character concept around it and build it up from there.

Oh and as for movies, you're darn right about them offering inspiration, but try to avoid re-creating the lead character. Become your own individual. Sure, take a good piece of movie cleaverness or particular concept that has "that's cool!" stamped all over it, but use it to enhance your character, not form the basis of who they are.

As for films that are worth checking out: Leon (a definative must-see), Nikita (the original french version) and Hard Boiled (Hong Kong action directed by John Woo) just because its gun-tastic!

How about Sorcery Adept? Improved Invisibility and Stealth spells, sustain both with sustaining foci. Other spells, The Good Old Manabolt, maybe Death Touch, or even some elemental manipulations. Weapons and skills should include Pistols and Edged Weapons.

Adept Powers (all geased as appropriate): Killing Hands: Serious (1.50), Distance Strike (1.50), Delay Damage: Silent (1.50), Improved Ability: Stealth 6 (1.12), and Traceless Walk (0.37).

That's all you really need to be an effective assassin in the Sixth World. Improved Ability: Martial Art really isn't even a requirement since Distance Strike and Delay Damage pretty much eliminates the target's ability to defend or counterattack, and you can have them drop dead well after you've left the crime scene. Firearms don't really need adept powers to make you effective; a simple Pistols skill of 6 is more than sufficient for when you need to use one. Improved Reflexes isn't a requirement since a good assassin won't even let his opponent know he's attacking.

Alternatively, building a character who's good with an easily concealed firearm and melee weapon, then using your adept powers to snag Combat Sense 2 or 3, Improved Reflexes 2 or Quick Strike, and Sixth Sense to max out your Surprise Test dice is an interesting option, too. Again, your opponents will likely be unable to counterattack if you win the Surprise Test, so Improved Ability isn't as much a necessity (just put 6 dice of Combat Pool into the first attack and they're almost assuredly going down).

Not a bad idea in general, but adept powers always cost even increments of .25 power points.

~J

I think one of the problems i'm havin' is I like the idea of Adepts, but bio ware is just too cool.

But doesnt' bio ware reduce the amount of magic points an Adept has, thus reducing how many cool Adept powers he/she can have?

Yep, but not as much as cyberware does (bio index divided by 2 (round down), gets taken off magic), plus it's often not as noticable.

Depends on the GMs stand on "cultured bio at startup" but the "magical social killer" is do-able

Human PhysAdept (Missile Mastery, Killing Hand(S), Delay Damage(Silent)

Attributes are high on the "Brain" side and quickness with slightly above to average Body and Strength (B=4,Q=5, S=3, Cha=4, Int=5, Wil=4)

Stack on some Bioware (Lv1 Synaptic Acc, Nictating Membran, Clean Metabolism, Thermosense[Against invisible guards], Enhanced Articulation, Synthecardum)

Use some of the social edges (Blandness, Lowered Astral Sig, Friendly Face, Good Reputation) and balance with fitting edges (Cursed Karma i.e)

As skills stack up on "Face" skills (High Lv Etiquettes, Fast Talk, Perform/Dancing, Intimidation/Mental) and some easily concealed weapons (Edged/Knive, Throwing/Knive, Pistol, one MA)


Gives you more than a simple "killer" as you can actually play a nice face also.


An alternate is the "Advanced Ganger" aka "Mafia Hitman". This guy comes up from the sewers and he shows. You can take Luigi out of the gutter but you can't take the gutter out of Luigi.

He is about as subtle as as "Heeresgruppe Mitte" and specialises in "direct solutions" rather than the subtle approach. High Body stats (and actually a high Willpower) but average intelligence/charisma (He is smarter than most gangers)

His ware is classical cyber (Maybe with a cortex-bomb add-on to keep him from squealing) and may even be used. It will have at least a Reflex booster and some dermal armor and bone lacing (Kevlar)

His skills are heavy on Pistols, Shotguns and Brawling/Streetfighting as well as Intimidation/Physical and maybe Demolitions.


This is a classical "Street Sam"


Third option works best for NPC's and is a "Sniper Team". One is the Spotter (Mage, concentration on Defence/Stealth spells and Spell defence/Spirit banishing) and one is the shooter (Mundane, classic Sniper or a Sorcery Adept/Sniper) Should be Lv2 Initiate with Masking and Shielding and preferably Hermetics (More Spirits, less weak spots due to domain)


Birdy