Hello all. Thanks for taking the time to peruse my thread. Here's my dilemma:

I'm getting ready to play in a game with someone else GMing for once. I work with the guy, but have never played SR with him or any of his current group. They are starting a new campaign (set in Seattle circa 2072), and I need to build a character that will be fun for me, as well as be able to contribute significantly to the group. Unfortunately, the GM has not given me much guidance other than the following:

1. SR4A ruleset (I don't have that book, just SR4)
2. Aresenal, Street Magic, and Augmentation are the only other sourcebooks allowed.
3. BP generation system, 400 points, RAW for all else
4. There will be 4 other players, plus myself and the GM
5. The "mage" and "hacker" slots have already been filled, but no specifics on any combat-specialty characters
6. The MOST IMPORTANT caveat...the group in general is against killing. Not necessarily against VIOLENCE, but very much anti-murder.

#6 is less a function of the characters they are playing, but more of a social agreement between all of the players and the GM. They don't like killing, so every character they play looks for ways around taking life. That's unusual for me and the SR games I play, but I figured it would be a challenge to my character design skills and my in-game tactics.

Character Concept: Late 20's Filipino-American human male, grew up on the streets of Manila, got involved in Bounty Hunting early on, then transitioned to Shadowrunning. High level of skill in unarmed/melee combat (courtesy of almost 20 years of Modern Arnis training), pretty darned good with shotguns (SticknShock only) and Tasers courtesy of years of Bounty Hunting, and good at sneaking around, again from trying to sneak up on/capture fleeing felons.

I'm pretty set on the Adept archetype, and my primary focus will be combat with a healthy dose of sneaking about. I've gotten the feeling from the GM that he doesn't usually throw the group against a bunch of high-powered opposition...mostly low-level corp security, gangers, beat-cops, and organized crime thugs. Obviously I (as well as the whole group, likely) will struggle against cybered spec-ops and whatnot, but I don't think we will be facing those types of threats, at least not right away.

So here is my initial build. I'm looking for advice on things like how to maximize my effectiveness while avoiding blatant min-max/munchkinism. Also, if there are things out there that generate better synergy than what I have, please let me know.

Notes: I know he has low STR for a melee focused character, but that's by design. It forces me to focus on Stun weapons. Also, since I'll be mostly using touch-only attacks with my Stun Club/Stun Gloves, I'll get +2 extra dice when attacking.



A couple more notes:

1. I haven't spent all of my money yet, so suggestions on gear choices are appreciated.
2. I'm working on finding a way to put a bunch of BPs into Martial Arts, specifically Escrima, but I haven't quite figured out how to do it, or if it will even be worth it.
3. I'm really not interested in changing my Race, though if your arguement is REALLY good, I'd be willing to entertain it.
4. Also, I haven't posted Knowledge and Lang skills. Those will come later too.

I would like to start off by saying that the shotgun idea is very cool, and always very fun. That being said, what you do can shape how practical it really is.

From your post you make it clear you are going combat monster type first and foremost, with a little stealth thrown in. If stealth is a somewhat larger part of the character, you may consider going more pistol focused due to ease of concealment and that whole pesky longarms being too big to take with me in tight spaces thing. If you still want a hand-cannon feel you can always take a revolver with a large caliber round. At the very least it might be kinda nice to pick up something like a Baretta 200ST with some lovely goodies attached (smartgun system, silencer, electronic firing, etc) and loaded with stick'n'shock. You already have decent pistols, and this would give you a concealable weapon with a burst fire mode for those moments when it can be nice to have.

As for the martial arts, the ones in the main book are not good. The others can be interesting, but I wouldn't worry too much if you don't fit them in.

The only other bit of thought would be that setting aside one of your points of essence to play around in ware can get you a lot of mileage. Depending on how thin spread your character is, this would be a solid idea.

Agreed, the shotgun serves two purposes for me.

1. Range: The Taser I picked only has a 20m range, so if I need to hit anything further away than that, I need something like the shotgun. Not to mention the ammo capacity is 2.5x to 8x that of the taser, so that helps out too.

2. It really fits more with the flavor of the character than an SMG or Assault Rifle. This guy has no formal military, para-military, or LE training, so it's unlikely he would have picked up any skills with "automatics". But I can EASILY see him being exposed to shotguns. And I figured if the GM doesn't sign off on the Enfield, I'll just go with the Defiance T-250. It's a VERY bounty-hunter-ish weapon.




Just to clarify, I don't see this character as a combat monster, nor is that necessarily the role he is designed to fill. He doesn't have a lot in the way of defense, and will not be able to take hits like an Ork/Troll Sammy. What he will be able to do is sneak up on badguys and take them out relatively quickly from fairly close range. I get the feeling from talking to the GM that this won't be a combat-heavy campaign. In fact, he has thrown a lot of references to the TV Show "Leverage", so I get the feeling that combat will most likely be less than 20% of the game. However, the team still needs someone who is effective in combat. I figure if there is anything out there that the Mage and I can't handle, we will probably be running.



Well, carrying a shotgun doesn't mean I can't be stealthy...it just means I probably can't walk down the street with it. Even my Stealth-Focused ex Spec-Ops character doesn't go for a morning job with his AR strapped to his back. Yes, this means that if I get "ambushed" when I'm not expecting trouble, I won't have the shotgun on me. That's fine. But if I am expecting trouble on a particular run, I'll have it. This guy isn't a social-stealth adept, so he won't be trying to sneak anything past security, so concealability doesn't matter that much.

Not to mention the 18 DP for Unarmed combat and 5S(e) dmg with the shock gloves...he should be able to handle himself just fine.




And here is where my personal bias comes in. I can stomach "sticknshock" equivalent ammo for shotguns, but I can't wrap my head around having such ammo for conventional pistols. So while there are some mechanical benefits to using SnS in heavy pistols and the like, I'm going to limit to shotguns for me. That's also why this character carries a taser instead of a Predator loaded with SnS.




Well, I'm guessing you are talking about Arsenal, because I haven't been able to find any martial arts in the SR4 book. Did they add martial arts rules to SR4A?

What I like about Arnis de Mano/Escrima/Kali (besides the fact that I train in it IRL) is that you can get extra dice to disarm, and do extra damage with a club. Though I'm not sure the extra DV would really count since I will mostly be trying to just touch my opponent rather than whack him with the baton. What I like more than that, though, are the Maneuvers...especially DISARM, FINISHING MOVE, and RIPOSTE.



I thought about that too, but I really think I want this guy to have the whole "my body is a temple" philosophy. If the group ends up with any heavily cybered characters, it will generate some great roleplaying opportunities.

Right now, this guy doesn't look too much like a former skip-tracer to me. No shadowing, no data search, no tracking, and no intimidation or negotiation skills. He can fight and sneak, but he doesn't have any of the skills he really needs in order to find outlaws and criminals. I could see it if he was someone's junior partner/muscle, the tough guy working with a more savvy face-style bounty hunter. And maybe that senior partner getting killed, or, to avoid that old cliche, retiring, could be the catalyst that leads him to look for shadow work.

I'm not sure what printing of SR4 you have, but a skill's modified rating is limited to natural skill x 1.5, rounded down. So you can only afford 2 levels each of improved clubs and unarmed combat. On the plus side, this frees up 1.5 points. You could upgrade to improved reflexes: 2 and still have 0.5 power points left for something else.

I guess you have neither looked at the Errata for SR4 nor SR4. According to the updated rules Improved Ability a)raises the skill and does not give a dice pool modifier and b) is capped at half of the natural skill rating. So Level 4 is impossible and for Level 3 you need a natural skill of 6.
I'd completely remove the Improved Abilities and get Improved Reflexes 2, 4 points of Combat Sense and Attrinute Boost AGI. For the remaining 0.25 PP either get Attribute Boost STR/BOD or some Improved Sense, or something else entirely.

Is there a reason why the character has no negative qualities?

From a mechanical point of view buying specializations at CharGen is inefficient.

VERY astute observation. You are right, he would make a lousy bounty hunter. It would make more sense if you had read all of the background I've put together so far, but it's not in electronic format yet so I can't easily put it up here. Needless to say, you hit the nail on the head with your next few sentences. This guy joined up with some other Bounty Hunters, and functioned mostly as muscle. He didn't do any of the actual investigative work, so he doesn't have any of those skills. If I was trying to build the kind of character that would be good at REAL bounty hunting, he'd look a lot different. But this guy is mostly muscle...skilled and sneaky muscle, but muscle nonetheless.




Bingo.




Actually, you are mistaken. In my version of SR4, it has this to say about the Improved Ability power: (emphasis mine)



So I can buy up to my skill rating in bonus dice with Improved Ability, since it doesn't actually increase the rating of my skill.

That was changed in the errata (which Dakka Dakka linked to). You said that your GM was going to be using SR4A, so those revised rules are the ones he will be using.

Holy crap...I wonder how I missed that? Checking over the Errata doc...yup, right there...page 2, 2nd column, halfway down. Well that stinks. It doesn't really help significantly if I'm limited to a die or two of benefit. Did they nerf Counterstrike the same way?




Not a bad idea. What really sucks about Attribute Boost is how hard you get hammered afterwards. Might be more worth it to just straight improve my AGI, ya think?




Because I don't like most of them, and there aren't any that I DO like that fit with my character background. For me, if it doesn't blend with the background or contribute meaningfully to the character (even negative qualities can do this), then I don't bother. I'm sorta repulsed by the idea of stacking on negative qualities JUST to get build points. It feels like cheating. I mean, seriously, this guy will never pick up any 'ware or do any hacking, so getting "Sensitive Neural Structure" and "Sensitive System" so I can have 20 extra BPs is just lame, and it's the kind of kiddie crap that I don't allow in my games.




It might be inefficient, but I haven't had much luck getting my combat skills where I want them to be without it. Plus, the specializations really work with my character's background. Yes, I can buy the whole Firearms Skill group at 3 for about the same # of BPs, but that just doesn't fit with the character. I'm all about making smart choices, and I don't believe that a character has to be mechanically handicapped to be roleplayed well, but some choices just don't fit for this guy.

For Agility boost, I wouldn't get it higher than 1. You will be rolling 6 dice, usually enough to get 2 or 3 points from it, and you should reliably soak the Drain. It is a good deal at level 1, but not worth the drawbacks at higher levels. For 1 power point, you can get a point of improved Agility, and a point of Agility boost. That's decent - you have a 6 for your base stat, and can improve it up to (potentially) 9 in short bursts.

Yup. Counterstrike grants extra dice not extra hits on the next attack according to the Street Magic Errata.

As Glyph said 1S is not hard to soak with BOD+WIL and the boost dice pool increases every time you raise your Magic. Additionally I thought you wouldn't want to sully your character's body with 'ware so muscle toners are out. Improved Attribute is still too expensive at 0.75 PP IMHO.

Actually Sensitive System IMHO would actually fit for the augmentation-averse character you described. The aversion might actually manifest in implant rejection.

I completely understand what you mean about negative qualities being a cop out for more BP. However, I think they can be extremely important in creating interesting, multidimensional characters. If your GM would allow Runner's Companion source book, I'd definately look through that for some very interesting qualaties.

In general, I lean on my players pretty heavily (not quite forcing) to fill out all of their BP worth of Negative qualities. Not only does it allow them to make more interesting and useful characters, it also gives me a lot of material to work with as a GM. Knowing that one of my players has a major bounty on him (not necessarily a legal bounty) or has a kid back home that they need to take care of can make for very interesting roleplaying and creates a liability for the character and makes that characters history that much more personal.

why take tasers at all then? just stick to shotguns....



as for martial arts:
wildcat: +1 for called shots to incease damage (thats a free +1DV!!) +1DV for unarmed combat, +1 for subduing
combined with clinch to negate reach bonuses of the opponents and finishing move, you could get in range and subdue your opponents, you could even scrap clubs skill....

Just don't forget that you only get one advantage per MA quality and the maneuvers are 2BP or 5 Karma each on creation.

Most of the changes listed aren't new to SR4a (only the adept cost reductions), they were addressed in previous errata a long time ago.

When the opposition brings out drones and the like, you WILL need things which do physical damage.


I don't see why you're so put off. Non-lethal combat is just a matter of ammo selection.

You can make your normal lethal type, just load gel, capsule, SnS into the gun.

Or go with loads, like subsonic (0DV, +2AP) or flechette to intentially increase targets armor w/o increasing damage (more likely to stage down from physical to stun).


If you want to go with the whole Filipino angle, there's a great martial art there in escrima. Works well w/ clubs (and you can club things w/ firearms as well). There's nothing wrong w/ melee hardening a pistol or shotgun.


In terms of skills... I'd go for the full stealth group. Infiltration is only one aspect of the muscle... you should have shadowing as well... and when you want to hide your weapons the palming skill is needed. Disguise is just downright usefull as well.

even worse, you can get only 2 maneuvers per MA quality.....

For the occasional times when a more lethal ammo is needed (drones, etc.), I would recommend the shock lock shotgun rounds. They are a good choice for a bounty hunter, because they are used to shoot open doors.

they also act as explosive rounds vs other targets without the standard explosive rounds downsides....