Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Beansidhe on <09-14-10/0042:27>
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Since I haven't played in a long time, and am looking at a character that isn't combat oriented, I'm trying to figure out if this character is designed in a way that she will be useful.
Metatype: Elf (30 KP)
Category Total: 30 KP
Attributes
BOD 2 (10 KP)
AGI 3 (15 KP)
REA 3 (25 KP)
STR 1 (0 KP)
CHA 6 (75 KP)
INT 4 (45 KP)
LOG 4 (45 KP)
WIL 4 (45 KP)
Essence 6
Edge 2 (10 KP)
Magic 3 (25 KP)
Category Total: 295 KP
Skill Groups
Athletics 1 (10 KP)
Conjuring 1 (10 KP)
Influence 4 (55 KP)
Sorcery 3 (35 KP)
Stealth 2 (20 KP)
Category Total: 130 KP
Skills
Artisan 1 (4 KP)
Assensing / Aura Reading 3 (16 KP)
Computer 1 (4 KP)
Data Search / Corporate 1 (6 KP)
Dodge / Ranged Combat 2 (10 KP)
Escape Artist 1 (4 KP)
First Aid 2 (8 KP)
Forgery 1 (4 KP)
Intimidation 3 (14 KP)
Perception / Visual 3 (16 KP)
Pilot Groundcraft / Wheeled 3 (16 KP)
Pistols / Semi Automatic 1 (6 KP)
Category Total: 108 KP
Knowledge Skills
Art 1 (2 KP)
Art History 1 (2 KP)
BioEngineering 2 (4 KP)
Biology 1 (2 KP)
Japanese Culture 3 (7 KP)
Megacorp: Evo 3 (7 KP)
Psychology 1 (2 KP)
Seattle High Society 3 (7 KP)
Wine 2 (4 KP)
Category Total: 37 KP
Languages
English Native
Japanese 4 (11 KP)
Russian 4 (11 KP)
Category Total: 22 KP
Contacts
Bartender Connection 3, Loyalty 3 (12 KP)
Blogger Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Company Man (Works for Evo, knew her before she dissappeared) Connection 3, Loyalty 4 (14 KP)
Fixer Connection 4, Loyalty 2 (12 KP)
Forensics Expert Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Mr. Johnson Connection 4, Loyalty 1 (10 KP)
Talislegger Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Talismonger Connection 4, Loyalty 3 (14 KP)
Troll Street Dealer Connection 2, Loyalty 2 (8 KP)
Category Total: 100 KP
Spells
Compel Truth (5 KP)
Heal (5 KP)
Influence (5 KP)
Category Total: 15 KP
Equipment
Ares Predator IV (350)
Concealable Holster (75)
Spare Clips x10 (50)
Regular Ammo x15 (300)
Lined Coat (700)
Clothing (1,000)
Clothing (500)
Clothing (250)
Clothing (125)
Clothing (50)
Clothing x5 (20)
Renraku Sensei (1,000)
Iris Orb (1,000)
Subvocal Mic (50)
Fake Sin Rate 3 (3,000)
Fake Sin Rate 2 (2,000)
Glasses Rate 4 (100)
SmartLink (500)
ImageLink (25)
Tag Eraser (150)
Category Total: 11,325 nuyen or 5 KP
Positive Qualities
Magician (30 KP)
Linguist (10 KP)
Category Total: 40 KP
Totals
30 KP: Metatype
295 KP: Attributes
130 KP: Skill Groups
108: Skills
37: Knowledge Skills
22 KP: Languages
100 KP: Contacts
15 KP: Spells
5 KP: Equipment
40 KP: Positive Qualities
782 KP Total
I have some Negative Qualities to go with this that will bring me the extra 70 KP, but haven't settled on picking which ones are the completely best set for the history I'm working on.
I know the character is not powerful at magic ATM, she isn't meant to be. It is something that has been discovered recently. I'm thinking of picking up another spell or two, but wanted to get some feedback from this venue on how the character is in general. I have a Technomancer (I believe instead of Decker) and an Orcish Street Sam so far that will be paired with the character.
Edit: Corrected the Attributes and changed the Languages sections.
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quick note: Reaction would cost 25: Rank; 1=0 rank; 2=10; rank 3=15 Saving you 10 karma to put to strength and keeping that from being so low.
Lined coat armor (6/4) with your Body being so low you would be encumbered, darn wrong attribute...was just working on a sammi for a friend of mine :( so i had strength instead of body....
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Thanks. I had AGI and REA 10 cost too high. Adjusted the points.
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Your magical ability is too low to be that useful against all but the most basic opposition at this point. It's kind of like making a street samurai with Agility: 3 and pistols: 3 because he just "recently discovered" guns. I understand being a newbie at this is part of your concept. I just want you to be aware that you will be sharply limited until you improve those areas.
Fortunately, you can function as a decent enough face while you are improving your magical skills. 10 dice may not seem like much, with how high social skills can get pumped up, but you will be about on par with the average professional Johnson. And your main asset will be your network of contacts.
The only thing I would really change is all of those low-ranked language skills. Language skills limit your social skills, and having a language skill at less than 4 means you are not getting the benefit of the Linguist quality that you bought. You are better off with one or two languages at 4 (which the Linguist quality will raise to 6), and the rest as linguisofts (which are still relatively cheap).
Overall, I think the character is functional, if it is the only mage in the group - another mage would start out too far on the power curve for you to really catch up. If you are the only mage, though, you can improve at your own pace, and be the group's face in the meantime.
Be careful with the mind affecting spells, though. They can really blow up in your face if you botch them, and you don't want to use them on someone you deal with regularly, because generally targets will eventually realize what has happened to them.
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sorry should have added my update to a new post, that aside I like her. She has allot of depth for playing, and is different then most face style PC's I have seen.
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@Frankie: How is she different than a lot of faces? I saw the nice assortment of abilities that an Adept could bring to the table (and made me think of making her one).
Armor and Encumbrance: Thank you very much for the reminder. I'm the only one that knows the rules in the group, but I only know them based on memory from many years ago and the one read through of the SR420th book that I did over the past few weeks. I'm going to give another skim, but didn't think about the Encumbrance issue, or even remember what stat it was linked to.
@ Glyph: Very fair statement on being behind. Sadly, since I have little practical experience to put to it, I can't quantify how far behind she is in magic. I knew that she would not be very good at it, but didn't know how bad it would be.
The contacts I didn't know if I was investing in too heavily or too lightly. As a Face I'm supposed to have people to talk to. I kept loyalty low on many of them, since she has been distanced with her contacts from before she faded into the shadows (except one). So she is building the relationships with the new folks.
I will work on changing the languages up a bit. It is a good piece of advice. Right now the points are cheap (only buy to 4) when later it will be buying to 3 with 1 point, then paying the higher price to increase.
Influence I didn't take to use on folks that she is using as contacts, but more to deal with having some magical back up on other things that are going on. She has worked as a mundane face for a long time and relies on those abilities to deal with folks.
Will keep in mind the advice about being the only mage.
Further Questions
Are there spells that will help me with interacting with folks. I know that Aura Reading is going to be nice to get a clue, and some of the detection spells are handy, but not much seemed like it magically boosted interaction without being an Adept (looked at being a Mystic Adept).
I am going to have some points left, where would you think that I should invest them? Bring my Magic Trait up? Bring Sorcery up? I felt bad about buying sorcery as high as the Influence Skill Group.
Thanks for the thoughts so far. Was toying around with the character for a while today trying to figure out if I can accomplish both things that I am doing. I see how she is behind a mundane Face, they wouldn't bother with the Influence group but buy them individually and higher as well as popping CHA up a bit.
Does it seem like I would be better off dropping the magic idea from the concept? I'm worried for the group that I am going with that having the magic aspects will be more useful than the social aspects since we have no mage ATM.
Have now changed the language section to take Russian and Japanese at 4. Did Russian because I'm working off the Evo theory, which works out of Russia. Might change the corp that features in my history, and then change the language. Japanese seems to speak for itself most of the time.
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Good morning, got a couple of questions
1 what is your Chargen final build value?
2 what is the make up of your party.
One thing I was thinking of when I looked her over was it looked Luke you were building a pc without trying to min/ max, which I thought was cool. Most face pc's I have seen really go for that approach, coming up with dice pools of 15+ for there social skills.
I will boot up my computer and post a couple example of NPC face's social skill list for examples and other mire experienced players will probably have better thoughts
Cheers and please excuse any spelling mistakes I am posting from the old Iphone
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Name: PRIS
Street Name: Seraphim/ Angel
Sex: Female
Race: Elf------------------------------------------30 BP
Attributes
Body: 5------------------------------------------40
Agility: 5----------------------------------------30
Reaction: 4------------------------------------30
Strength: 3------------------------------------20
Charisma: 6----------------------------------30
Intuition: 3------------------------------------20
Logic: 3---------------------------------------20
Willpower: 3--------------------------------20
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above:240
Edge: 3------------------------------------20
Magic: 6 -----------------------------------65
Initiative: 7
Essence: 6
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above:325
Knowledge Skills (18 for Language and knowledge skill)
English : N
Spetheriel (Speak) : 4 (6)
Japanese : 4
Fine Cuisine : 2
Fine Restaurants : 2
Elven Society : 2
Billiards (American) : 2
Active Skills ---------------------------------144 BP for skills
Con (seduction): 4 (6) --------------------18
Etiquette: 4----------------------------------16
Negotiation (bargaining): 5 (7) --------22
Leadership: 4-------------------------------16
Pistols (Semi-Automatics):4(6) --------8
Infiltration (Urban): 1(3) -----------------6
Dodge (Ranged Combat): 3(5) -------14
Disguise: 3---------------------------------12
Perception: 5------------------------------20
Unarmed Combat: 1---------------------4
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 469
Positive Qualities
First Impression--------------------------5
Trustworthy (2) --------------------------10 (Negotiation/con)
Adept---------------------------------------5
Negative Qualities
Sensitive System----------------------15
Allergy/Mild to glutton-----------------10
Nano intolerance-----------------------5
Scorched---------------------------------5
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 451
Weapons (6 BP=30,000$)
Flechette Ammo (20 shots)
Tranq Patch, Rating 10 (5)
Shock Gloves
Ares predator
Silencer
Combat Fine Knife Short Blade
Armors (12/7)
Form-Fitting Body Armor Full-Body Suit (1,600$) (6/2) [3/1 count towards encumbrance]
Greatcoat Line (3,000$) (6/5)
Vehicles
Honda Spirit (10,000$)
Commlinks
Commlink : Novatech Airware (1,250$)
OS: Iris orb (1,000$)
Net wizard bundle (480$)
Equipments
Contact Lenses (+ Smartlink) (+Flare Compensation)
Fake Sin (Rating 4) (4000$)
Flashlight
Adept Powers
Kinesics (3) cost: 1.5
Voice Control cost: .5
Commanding Voice cost: .25
Cool Resolve (6) cost: 1.5
Facial Sculpt (6) cost: 1.5
Melanin Control cost: .5
Sustenance cost: .25
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 460
Contacts: 40 BP for contacts (maybe low, but I like to have my PC’s role play for allot of their contacts..usually solo before I start my primary first run…allows me to get to know my players, let them get a feel for their PC and they will all start with a little Karma, [2-7])
This is a NPC, in case I have no Face in the party….but she will get about the same treatment as my normal PC’s. Just I will run her a little while they are going through there solo games. Giving her contacts and some karma.
She offers several abilities, one is a strong up front negotiator (Die pool: 17 without first impression), second she can blend into any situation, changing her appearance as she needs. Lastly she had a good die pool for combat (13 15 with smartgun)
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Thanks for popping that up. I saw the utility of using the Adept, and sadly the Magician seems to add little to being a Face.
The other people that I have so far are a Technomancer and an Orkish bodyguard (not mine, just what I have heard about the character).
We are using Karma at 750 with the option to take 70 worth of Negative Qualities. I have Negative Qualities that fit the character, so would end up at 820 on KarmaGen.
The DM that we are going to have has made 2 Shadowrun characters (one this past weekend, one years ago) and played Food Fight 4.0 this past weekend. He doesn't have a huge amount of experience obviously. He is used to a number of other games, and I figure that knowing the system is secondary to being able to put out a good story.
I'm not really trying to min/max the character but put together what I think she would be. Not sure if I should throw that away and bring in some improvement to the way that she is.
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That's the tough balancing act. You want a character that has an organic feel to them, but you also want a character who won't flounder and fail when the game starts.
My own approach is to start with a concept first. More than just "face" or "mage" - more like "smooth-talking bounty hunter with a light touch" or "hacker with spy drones and a lot of contacts in the pirate trid news biz". I will rough the character out, then work on the background, changing the stats as the background dictates (maybe I decide that the knife fighting adept also uses his knives for woodcarving, so I take the artisan/woodcarving skill). Overall, I find that working on stats and background in tandem makes for an internally consistent character that can still play a functional role in a team.
While not every character has to be fully optimized (I have made a "pure" adept, knowing that adding a bit of bioware would have been more cost-effective), some deference should be shown to the rules and setting. For example, mundane characters are supposed to be fearful and envious of the awakened, and constantly tempted by the quick, easy boost of 'ware. The rules back this up by giving lots of cheap dice pool boosts from technology and magic. So if I make a mundane character, that character will need to be sneaky and resourceful, and will definitely struggle. If I envision a mundane character who can slug it out toe to toe with cybered foes, I will have to realize that the setting is not compatible with that concept.
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As I posted up the original concept came from the old Face picture that was in the SR3E book. It has changed a lot since then, but that was a picture that I liked. As I was reading through Neg Qualities I got some ideas from Lost Loved One and Big Regret (I think that is what it was called). I saw a person who was a spokesperson for a major company and ended up finding out things that had happened there that she was very much against. The Lost Loved One I envisioned as her husband.
These two flaws fought for a while and I ended up getting this:
The character is the wife of a brilliant scientist who is on the cutting edge of development despite not being corporate funded. They met in college and have been together for a few years. His research in BioTech reaches a breakthrough, and so the two of them open up a small company with her as the business and PR manager. Over time they are approached by other investors who want to buy them out, and eventually they give in to it, since her husband hasn't been able to close the deal on what he has been working on and their money is drying up. The two of them go to the corp and work for them, she acts as PR for the corp, and her husband is doing what he wants to do and what they want to do: BioTech theory.
Then comes her loss of memory. A few details that I'm going to talk to the DM as how I see it but she won't remember are as follows; eventually she finds out some dirty secrets on one of the corps projects that she has had to do PR clean up for at one point (or many points). She brings her complaints to someone further up the ladder that she believes doesn't know what is going on.
She wakes up years later on the street in a different city. She has no memory of things that have occurred since a short time after the company being absorbed. She finds out that she is 'Dead' and believes that getting back to the corp will help her clear up this mess. She talks her way through a few things that end her up back in the city that the corp office they worked at was. She goes in to try and clear up her life and finds that after speaking to the receptionist some company men come down to escort her. She has seen this run down before, and knows she has to get out of there before the company men get to her. Uncertain what is going on she flees and gets away from the company men.
One of the company men tracks her down, but it is an old friend of her and her husband. He tells her that he doesn't know what is going on, as far as he knew they both had died years ago. The orders from the top are pretty clear that she is to be brought in for questioning, but he doesn't like the way that this is headed. He passes her a credstick with nuyen on it and sends her to a local fixer to help get her out of town.
Having dealt in PR for a long time, she has cleaned up messes that Shadowrunners have created, and now finds that she is turning to the shadows since the light will not provide her answers on what happened during those missing years and where her husband has disappeared to.
That is the short version of it anyway.
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One thing I was thinking of when I looked her over was it looked Luke you were building a pc without trying to min/ max, which I thought was cool. Most face pc's I have seen really go for that approach, coming up with dice pools of 15+ for there social skills.
I wouldn't really call a face with 15+ dice min/maxed (as that pool doesn't requier any maxing, nor really mining, is even that a word) someone with 25+ dice starts to be min/maxed for a face.
You can after all get 50+ dice for social skill tests.
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Elven Face
Elf (30)
Attributes
BOD 3 (25)
AGI 3 (15)
REA 3 (25)
STR 2 (10)
CHA 6 (75)
INT 3 (25)
LOG 3 (25)
WIL 4 (45)
Edge 2 (10)
Magic 6 (5) (100)
Essence 5.12
Skill Groups
Influence 4 (55)
Athletics 1 (10)
Stealth 2 (20)
Skills
Escape Artist 1 (4)
Pistols (Semi Automatics) 1 (6)
Dodge (Ranged) 1 (6)
Pilot Ground Craft (Wheeled) 1 (6)
Intimidation 3 (14)
Perception (Visual) 3 (16)
Computer 1 (4)
Data Search 1 (4)
First Aid 2 (8)
Knowledges
BioTech 2 (4)
Japanese Culture 3 (7)
Business 4 (11)
Wine 1 (2)
Corporate Politics 3 (7)
Psychology 3 (7)
Corporate Background 3 (7)
Biology 2 (4)
Seattle High Society 1 (2)
Languages
English (Native)
Japanese 4 (11)
Mandarin 4 (11)
Russian 4 (11)
Contacts
Bartender (Conn 3, Loy 3) (12)
Fixer (Conn 4, Loy 3) (14)
Company Man (Conn 3, Loy 4) (14)
Mr Johnson (Conn 4, Loy 1) (10)
Troll Street Dealer (Conn 2, Loy 2) (8)
Lifestyle
Regular House (Low Comfort, Entertainment, Neighborhood; Middle Necessities and Security; Free Access, Easy Landlord) 14 LP (4,400/month)
Safe House (Squatter Comfort; Street Entertainment; Middle Necessities, Neighborhood; High Security; Security Conscious; Defective CHN) 12 LP (3,200/month)
Cyberware [AlphaWare]
Commlink Fairlight Caliban with Novatech Navi, Datalink, CyberEyes Rating 4 (Flare Compensation, Low light, Vision Enhancement Rate 3, Vision Magnification), Sim Module
BioWare [AlphaWare]
Clean Metabolism, Vocal Range Enhancer
Gear
Ares Predator IV, 10 Spare Clips, Concealable Holster, Silencer, Stick n Shock ammo x30, Regular ammo x120, Nonconductive (Rate 1) Lined Coat 900, Clothing (Sets at 5,000; 2,500; 1,250; 600; 300; 150; 150; 150; 75; 75; 75; 50; 50; 50), Sony Emperor with Iris Orb, Tag Eraser, DataChip x5, Mapsoft Seattle Rate 6, Mapsoft North America Rate 6, Datasoft Psychology Rate 6, Certified Credstick x3, 2 Fake License (Drivers) Rate 4, 2 Fake License (Firearm) Rate 4, 2 Fake License (Concealed Firearm) Rate 4, 2 Fake SIN Rate 4, Reflective Glasses, Subvocal Mic, AR Gloves, Earbuds Rate 3 (Spatial Recognizer, Audio Enhancer Rate 2), AutoPicker Rate 6, Cellular Glove Molder Rate 3, KeyCard Copier Rate 6, MagLok Passkey Rate 4, DocWagon Basic, MedKit Rate 6, 10 MedKit Refills, Biomonitor, Climbing Gear, Flashlight, 4 NanoPaste Disguise (Small Tube), Hyundai Shin-Hyung, 2 Browse Rate 6
Qualities
Erased (10)
Guts (10)
Linguist (10)
First Impression (10)
Adept (10) or Mystic Adept (20)
[Have 70 worth of Negatives]
Adept Powers
Melanin Control (.5)
Facial Sculpt Rank 3 (.75)
Voice Control (.5)
Kinesics Rank 3 (1.5)
Linguistics (.25)
Sustenance (.25)
Commanding Voice (.25)
Costs
Attributes 355
Skill Groups 85
Skills 68
Knowledges 51
Languages 33
Metatype 30
Contacts 58
Qualities 50 out; 70 in
Nuyen 53
Total 783 (Remaining 37)
Wondering how this one looks. I'm contemplating what I should do with the last 37 points. If I take the Mystic Adept it is down to 27 which would be spent on Spellcasting Skill and a spell or two. Only have 4 points of Adept powers selected, and am thinking I could trim that down to 3 by cutting Linguistics, Voice Control and Sustenance or one level of Facial Sculpt. That would give me a Magic of 2 for Spellcasting and give me a decent complement of Adept Powers. I'm wondering if I should look at Astral Perception for Assensing.
Well, I'm very tired. Stayed up late working on this version of the character. Thoughts from the smart folks out there?
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The vocal range enhancer and the voice control adept power are redundant with each other. You don't need both.
My personal preference would be a pure adept - magery at a weak level really isn't worth it. Astral perception might be something to consider, though, because assensing can reveal a lot of information - the enhanced perception power, which works for both perception and assensing, goes with that well. Multi-tasking and eidetic sense memory are also good powers for a face.
If you have some karma left over, you might consider raising your data search skill to improve your abilities at legwork. You already have decent contacts.
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Another suggestion, With the redundant range enhancer, and why spend essence on something you can have on the surface...instead think about using the last .12 +.1 from the range enhancer, +.2 from the commlink, +.2 from the simmod and go with 3 levels of Tailored Pheromones (Bio +.6 essence cost)..That is a +3 to all social die pools for somthing that costs nothing except getting read of the enhancer and playing with a external commlink. Overall .7 essence cost for Bio, .2 for cyberware.
Also do you mean data jack, or data lock instead of data link...I searched both Aug. and 4Ea and could not find that piece of ware?
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I must have missed something in the character creation section of the book. Plus I'm more or less a newbie with SR.
How on earth do you get some many dice for a starting character, and is it really going to be too difficult to survive unless I'm pooling around 15 dice?
From what I understood, I could only use a maximum of 200bp on attributes, could either have 1 attribute at 6 or 2 at 5 then the rest at 4 or lower. Same limitation on maximums in the skills.
I've been drafting away and so far have gotten to this:
(The character is a cross between the special ops and the face)
B3 A4 R3 S4 C4 I3 L1 W4
My main skills come in the groups which maxed at level 4
So most of my dice pools are 7 or 8 dice.
I also haven't opted for boosting stats or skills via implants or magic (The character is actually a Mystic Adept)
Was actually thinking I'd made a fairly well rounded character and would be able to succeed at most of the tasks but after reading the posts here I get the impression I'm really going to struggle.
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Honestly, I think it's impossible to create a good, well-rounded special ops soldier with 400Bp.
And no, how many dice you "need" depends on the group. If the whole group consists of powergamers, the GM will be forced to increase the difficulty, thus forcing you to start powergaming, too. But in my groups, I much more prefer well-rounded characters over min-maxed characters who can roll 20 dice on a specific skill.
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Honestly, I think it's impossible to create a good, well-rounded special ops soldier with 400Bp.
And no, how many dice you "need" depends on the group. If the whole group consists of powergamers, the GM will be forced to increase the difficulty, thus forcing you to start powergaming, too. But in my groups, I much more prefer well-rounded characters over min-maxed characters who can roll 20 dice on a specific skill.
Isn't the point of making a starting character for him/her to be kinda green? To my knowlege and memory (or lack there of) Special Forces are recruited out of the best of those graduating bootcamp and culled out of the fleet by PFT scores and Marksmanship scores.
A starting Runner SpecOps is a Green/boot/ Oprative so his skills won't be all that, compared to a Vet of sat 10 missions. I don't really think a SpecOps character should be allowed in a low/average power game. A single trained "Spook" is enough of a bad ass to wipe out a party of 10 green runners. Without using a slug thrower.
True Story time:
When I was a marine (311 Infantry) & we were in Oki. We had a battallion formation, The formation was to warn us that there was Marine Recon on liberty with us. "Do not joke with anyone you do not know!, DO NOT hold eye contact with anyone you do not know, finally DO NOT START A FIGHT WITH ANYONE YOU DO NOT KNOW. We do not want you coming back in a body bag." This speech was given to everyone from the 1st Sgts to the boot Privates like me.
A SpecOps starting character should be a 600-700 BP starting character when everyone else is a 400. Not to mention that they should have free(government funded) Cyber eyes, ears, wired flexes Muscle enhancements, and reinforced bones. WHY? Because they are the baddest thing on a battlefield.
Training fact.
SpecOps final test is a LIVEOP. To graduate one needs to complete an extraction, or wetwork mission. Or so I was told.
SpecOps are not the stuff of starting characters. They are Prestige class material.
As for stats... Remember 3's are base normal. I personally might qualify as a 4 Bod/Str definitely when I work out a bit. But my reflexes/Agility are maybe a 2 (Tops). You'd want base 4s in all four of those abilities min to be even considered for SpecOps. :o
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Point taken.
I always considered that the character had room to grow.
Based on the sample characters in the book, it seemed like the skills and attributes were on par.
The description for the skill levels is what swayed me in the end, plus I really liked the flexibilty and potential the character has.
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With 400BP, I would think, that a well-rounded soldier is possible (didn't try to build one, yet). Not a highly experienced veteran or officer, but not a green rookie, either. Of course, this is only possible if you accept, that such a character will tend to have many skills in the range of 1-3. Perhaps one could even bring in some special training (Parachuting, for example, or Explosives or basic Electronic Warfare or Gunnery...), but I wouldn't hope for the unstoppable sharpshooter :-)
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With 400BP, I would think, that a well-rounded soldier is possible (didn't try to build one, yet). Not a highly experienced veteran or officer, but not a green rookie, either. Of course, this is only possible if you accept, that such a character will tend to have many skills in the range of 1-3. Perhaps one could even bring in some special training (Parachuting, for example, or Explosives or basic Electronic Warfare or Gunnery...), but I wouldn't hope for the unstoppable sharpshooter :-)
Yeah with 400 BP you may a pretty good Boot private. and yeas we had alot of general knowedge about our craft, but we trained after we trained, and when we slepted we trained some more.
A 400pnt character could maybe qulaify to become SpecOps but to be one... No.
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Surviving the Cut is a great show on Discovery to give you an idea of SpecOps: Ranger School (http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/ranger-school/)
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Based on what the core book says about the skill levels (Realistic or otherwise), the character got as far as veteran (level 4) in his training, a little short of spec ops.
I also realised that it was the covert ops sample character that I was basing my build off, combined with face, and not a spec ops build.
hehehehe.
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Wow all about RL, i did not make it through my Selection (In one month of hell I lasted about 2 1/2 weeks). I took me 3 yrs in the Normal Army, made my strips, trained in Korea mostly Rucking my ass off, Took my team to every range we could find, i spent hours on the phone with other units to see of we could ride along with them, I weighed about 210-215 had about 11% body fat at the time, could run a 13.15 2 mile run, average about 100+ sit ups in two min, about 60-75 pushups in two min (I had a hard time getting these up, had to do about 2-300 a day so i could do a proper by regulation push up) I was in ADA, and ran the sentinel Radar system. With the help of two warrant and the contractors our teams became some of the best trained Air defense radar scouts in the Army shortly before Iraq kicked off. So i was well trained in all radio communication, trained above standard in all forms of land navigation, worked with several local Infantry units and got my squad tactics up to par, and even with all that i did not make it.
One of my first Privates who later served with me out of Ft Campbell after making his stripes, went through Ranger school, fell off a cliff nearly breaking his neck when his 80 pound ruck fell on his head while he was in the mountain stage.....well in the Army in most schools you are set up to succeed, not here chummers, my boy was washed right back to the beginning and because he felt he owed it to his soldiers who he took into Iraq he put himself through from the start making it his second time. I promise you he is above and beyond a talented soldier, I leaned on him hard when he first came in, he wears a silver star with Valor which he had gained down range and this school ate him up the first time around without a second thought. I guess same goes for me, Though i may not have been the best, I made sure i could lead from the front and i could not hang it out....just to physical, to mental, and once you get hurt (even a turned ankle) you start to crack. But i learned more about myself in that short month than at any moment in my life!
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Based on what the core book says about the skill levels (Realistic or otherwise), the character got as far as veteran (level 4) in his training, a little short of spec ops.
I also realised that it was the covert ops sample character that I was basing my build off, combined with face, and not a spec ops build.
hehehehe.
So more a spy than a Recon Gyrine?
Oh Drek! This is just fan-frelling-tastic. My whole party is so Frelling "Spooky" when the feces hits the horizontal impellar, I'm the only one who the bad guys are gonna see! A Sniper, A SpecOps and a CovOps/Face paired up with a Street Sammie! Vashta Nerada! thats what I'm teamed up with!
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Sniper (Codac), Face (JC), Tank (you), and I'd be more of a spook/second story thief than "spec ops." Aren't Spec Ops usually like... soldiers still? I'm more; while JC's sweet talking sentries/marks; sneak in, screw over the security systems and turn a couple cameras to conveniently stare at a wall, blue screen'o death some systems, maybe take out a couple guards quickly and quietly and hopefully not too noticeably, unlock the front door and RUN LIKE HELL before you trample me since I'm way down here.
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Sniper (Codac), Face (JC), Tank (you), and I'd be more of a spook/second story thief than "spec ops." Aren't Spec Ops usually like... soldiers still? I'm more; while JC's sweet talking sentries/marks; sneak in, screw over the security systems and turn a couple cameras to conveniently stare at a wall, blue screen'o death some systems, maybe take out a couple guards quickly and quietly and hopefully not too noticeably, unlock the front door and RUN LIKE HELL before you trample me since I'm way down here.
Codac(Hide and shoot... Nice Hat)
JC (Blah blah blah. Not working? Hide and shoot)
You (sneak sneak sneak. Detected Hde & shoot!)
Me(knock down wall knock down door Catch bullets) I need the party to chip in for some super armor to cover my Oysters with! :o
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Well hopefully between the three of us, everything's already dead, dying, or otherwise rendered casualty by the time you break and enter. You're the last resort. XD
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You're the last resort. XD
To quote Motown Scrapper, "That's no fun."
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You're the last resort. XD
To quote Motown Scrapper, "That's no fun."
He also thought Flurries were the best forces ever and so much fun. No matter how many times my assault mechs used them as terrain.
And you don't HAVE to just wait outside. Provided you can even fit IN the door without making your own you can stand behind JC and be the actual-threatening-because-he-isn't-at-all-but-thinks-he-is.
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LOL
JC:Ok I want 20 cases of Stick & Shock and your pants.
Fixer: My WHAT?!
Usda: PANTS. NOW!
Fixer: *Begins unbuckling* Yes sir right away!
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Precisely.
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LOL
JC:Ok I want 20 cases of Stick & Shock and your pants.
Fixer: My WHAT?!
Usda: PANTS. NOW!
Fixer: *Begins unbuckling* Yes sir right away!
I feel I should step in, and tell you that this idea will probably not work out well for you in the end.
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Oh it won't work out well for the party. I fully anticipate us not even getting through the intro without horribly dying and/or killing each other.
But boy will it be fun!
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Usda Beph: You’re not kidding about Recon operatives, those guys are tough cookies. We were in doing a large (at the time largest Irwin has ever seen) training mission, and in Irwin the big target for us ADA folks is what is called task force angel. Helicopters who insert there small D>I>R>T teams into the area. Now these teams are made up of their better soldiers as well as Rangers called down from Washington and Recon called up from San Diego. Our teams run about 4 members, but we have allot of fire power. I have in training held off a platoon of regular Infantry using terrain, calling in Artillery simulation rounds, and over lapping fields of fire. We have the advantage of setting up on hill tops, so it is hard to get to us, and because we have a million dollar radar we will be given Fire priority.
So after we set up, and had a good perimeter our MILES (think laser tag) gear kept going off. Finally our OC (think judge) decided someone was killing us, we got to watch as task force angel flew over the horizon and our poor fire teams had no radar lock to get accurate fire on them. After the flights came in three guys came up to our site and introduced themselves. They were recon guys, and they were in fact the ones that killed us off. Now I was just a private at the time, just out of AIT but those guys were ghosts, they had been in our wire all day, and we are talking about Desert, not allot of coverage, they took 14 hours to approach our site, enter our wire and make those kills. We heard nothing till the exercise was over. Then we all sat down. We took one Hummer in to get them hot chow, and they decided we were cool kids and trained us. Mostly about site security, but those things stayed with me till I suffered my last injury and stopped leading soldiers. After they left us, those three guys went on to set up outside one of our Brigade TOC's and snipped at important people like officers and such....sense the Division commander could not be shot he lost allot of aids that week lol. When they debriefed us i got to drive our coronal to the center, they said those three guys tied up an entire infantry company who tried in vain to find them. Some badass well trained operatives.
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What makes special ops people so tough in Shadowrun terms is not just their high skill, but their breadth of skill. They really are not a good example to put in the skill descriptions, because they are not just a single high skill, but also a high linked Attribute and lots of complementary skills. The hyperbole at the higher level skill descriptions doesn't help, either (because in game terms, a single die is about a third of a success - there is not a whole lot of difference between Mr. Elite and Joe Average, really).
A skill of 6 in pistols is someone who uses his gun in combat situations on a regular basis, who spends a lot of time at the range, who does things like reloading or switching targets instinctively, who can shoot without hesitation or doubt even in the chaotic swirl of combat. Considering that street samurais act as the muscle for groups of covert intrusion specialists, dealing with intrusion countermeasures and hostile fire from multiple targets on a regular basis - well, I wouldn't see a skill of 6 as being out of line for many of them.
I must have missed something in the character creation section of the book. Plus I'm more or less a newbie with SR.
How on earth do you get some many dice for a starting character, and is it really going to be too difficult to survive unless I'm pooling around 15 dice?
<snip>
My main skills come in the groups which maxed at level 4
So most of my dice pools are 7 or 8 dice.
I also haven't opted for boosting stats or skills via implants or magic (The character is actually a Mystic Adept)
Was actually thinking I'd made a fairly well rounded character and would be able to succeed at most of the tasks but after reading the posts here I get the impression I'm really going to struggle.
The reason for the apparent disconnect is that Shadowrun is a game where technology and magic make people superhuman - that's one of the main themes of the game, and the rules reinforce this by giving many cheap, easy dice pool bonuses to magical characters and people who augment themselves.
Your character's dice pools seem relatively low because he isn't augmenting them with anything - they are straight-up skill and Attribute dice. On the other hand, 7 or 8 dice are a decent enough dice pool for lots of things - it is a decent dice pool for social skills (for a non-face), sneaking around, climbing over a chain-link fence, sprinting for extra distance, performing first aid (assuming you have a rating: 6 medkit, which every runner should - a rating: 2 medkit is for going camping, not for when you know people are going to be shooting at you), and a lot of other tasks. So don't think a dice pool in the 7-8 range is useless.
Where dice pools tend to be higher is in the areas of magic, social skills, and combat - not so coincidentally, these are also the skills that you will be using against people who get to roll to resist them, and the skills that have a lot of potential negative modifiers. The street samurai's 15 dice for pistols might seem impressive, but what about when he is fatigued, lightly wounded, in a dark alley with a searchlight glaring down from above, trying to switch targets so he can get a shot at each of the two guards, who are crouching down behind partial cover? Suddenly he has a lot less dice to throw down.
So 7 or 8 in those areas may be fine for someone who just wants to be well-rounded. Good enough to fit in at the biker rave without embarassing his ganger friends, or to sell a hot corp car to the local chop shop. Good enough to shoot from behind cover to help the street sam out a bit. But if it is one of your core specialties - if you call yourself a mage, or a face, or a street samurai - then you need more of an edge. With things like muscle toner, the improved ability adept power, magical foci, and similar things, you can boost the base Attribute plus skill dice pool into the high teens, or even higher.
Just be careful, because while someone without enough dice can feel useless, someone who spends too much on being good at a single thing can wind up with glaring weaknesses and lack of ability in other areas. It can get to the point of diminishing returns - but don't assume anyone rolling 20 dice must be a one-trick pony, either. It is quite possible to be very good at something, and still be moderately well-rounded.
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There is something else to note: How is success determined for that particular skill niche?
If the skill is usually used in a straight threshold test, then you could go with a lower dice pool or at least enough dice to succeed at whichever threshold you choose. If the skill is usually used in an opposed test, you might want to have more dice.
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LOL
JC:Ok I want 20 cases of Stick & Shock and your pants.
Fixer: My WHAT?!
Usda: PANTS. NOW!
Fixer: *Begins unbuckling* Yes sir right away!
I feel I should step in, and tell you that this idea will probably not work out well for you in the end.
It's in knowing WHEN to apply the raging beast persona that makes it work. It is as much a Face act as the slick willie wheeler dealer. I have a lot of experience doing intimidation.
However, sometimes failing does make the Game more interesting in that 'Oh God! Oh God! we're all gonna die!' kinda way! ;D That can be fun also!
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Wondering how this one looks. I'm contemplating what I should do with the last 37 points. If I take the Mystic Adept it is down to 27 which would be spent on Spellcasting Skill and a spell or two. Only have 4 points of Adept powers selected, and am thinking I could trim that down to 3 by cutting Linguistics, Voice Control and Sustenance or one level of Facial Sculpt. That would give me a Magic of 2 for Spellcasting and give me a decent complement of Adept Powers. I'm wondering if I should look at Astral Perception for Assensing.
Well, I'm very tired. Stayed up late working on this version of the character. Thoughts from the smart folks out there?
Counterspelling is something that every group needs. If you don't have a full mage, go MA just so you can get a high counterspelling skill. Otherwise it's just a matter of: "Hey Wally Wizzer, cast Analyze Truth on this Slitch." "Yep, lying." "Oh, shucks. I guess that means you're dead."
Other than just advice, I need to clarify something. Is your Face homeless? I don't see a lifestyle.
Speaking of lifestyles, your lifestyle affords you a bunch of things on the free, like clothes. You'd still have to buy clothes above your lifestyle, so, you want tres chic clothes and you've got a middle lifestyle, then you're going to have to shell out. But, your lifestyle should take care of the little things. Like, you need a flashlight? You aren't living on the streets? Then you've got a flashlight.
Also, on the knowledge/language skill front, you might want to look into Learning Stimulus nanites.
I'll just leave this here.
Learning Stimulus (LS): These neural amplifiers facilitate
comprehension and memorization of skills the character already
possesses by enhancing the brain’s ability to cross-reference learned
skill memories and the language comprehension functions of the
parietal-temporal-occipital complex. When raising a Knowledge
or Language skill the character already possesses, LS nanoware reduces
the Karma cost by 1 for each rating point
(yes, that means that with 12,000¥ for rating 3 nanites, you can improve a KS/LS from 1 to 4 with one point karma.)
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Whilst it would only require 1 point of Karma it would require at least three downtimes to raise a knowledge skill from 1 to 4 as you can only raise it by one point at a time.