Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: cowtipping_extremist on <09-04-11/1401:05>
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Hey all, it's my very first SR char so I'd love advice on things I've done wrong, things that don't make sense, redundant abilities/skills, etc., etc. My char gen selections are limited to the core rule book.
Thanks!
Breakdown:
Lucky is a human B&E and ranged combat guy who is built around being the result of a corporate experiment in which they were trying to boost a baby's magical potential. It didn't work, but it did give this particular human an uncanny paranormal ability to perform statistically improbable feats (as reflected in his Edge). His "sensitive system" reflects his body's almost mage-like inclination towards real flesh and avoiding robotic parts.
He's still got 2700 leftover nuyen and 28 BP remaining. What say you??
"Lucky"
Race (0 BP) : Human
Attributes (265 BP) :
Body= 4
Agility= 5
Reaction= 4
Strength= 2
Charisma= 3
Intuition= 4
Logic= 2
Willpower= 3
Edge= 8
Essence= 5.8
Mag/Res= 0
Initiative= 8
Positive Qualities (20 BP) :
Lucky
Negative Qualities (-35 BP) :
Addiction (mild), novacoke
Allergy (mild), gold
Incompetent, hacking
Weak immune system
Sensitive system
Skills (130 BP) :
Automatics= 5 (assault rifles +2)
Heavy weapons= 1
Long arms= 1
Pistols= 4
Gunnery= 1
Infiltration= 5 (urban +2)
Dodge= 3 (ranged +2)
Disguise= 3
Perception= 3 (visual +2)
Shadowing= 1
Locksmith= 1
Athletics (group)= 2
Influence (group)= 2
Close combat (group)= 1
Knowledge = ??
Language = ??
Gear + nuyen cost (9 BP) :
Ceska Black Scorpion (550)
**Hidden Arm Slide (350)
**Laser Sight (100)
**2 spare clips (10)
**40 explosive rounds (200)
**80 regular ammo (160)
Ares Alpha (1700)
**Gas-vent, rating 3 (400)
**4 spare clips (20)
**1 spare grenade clip (5)
**170 APDS rounds (1190)
**6 high explosive grenades (270)
**6 frag grenades (210)
Shock Glove (200)
Parashield Dart Pistol (600)
**1 spare clip (5)
**10 narcojet darts (575)
**Concealable holster (75)
Armor vest (600)
Chameleon suit (8000)
**Thermal damping, rating 5 (2500)
Meta Link commlink (100)
Fake SINs, rating 5, rating 5, rating 3 (13000)
Earbuds, rating 3 (30)
**Audio enhancement +3 (300)
Smartlink (500)
Autopicker, rating 3 (600)
Cellular glove molder, rating 3 (600)
Keycard copier, rating 6 (1800)
Maglock sequencer, rating 6 (1200)
Miniwelder (250)
Monofilament chainsaw (300)
Respirator, rating 6 (150)
Gecko Tape Gloves (250)
Docwagon Contract, basic (5000)
Datajack, .2 essence (500)
Leftover Nuyen= 2,700
Contacts (8 BP) :
Bartender (conn=2, loy=2)
Street Doc (conn=3, loy=1)
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Arm slide for a Scorpion machine pistol?
Got big arms!
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Things to add. They may not all fit without cuts in other areas-
Unless you are already bumping up against a low dice pool max set by your GM, get more agility. Muscle toner 2 at minimum, For a higher powered campaign get Restricted gear and muscile toner 4. It helps your combat and helps with infiltration, which is probably your key skill for B&E.
You have put alot of skills toward combat but only have one IP. Unless its a low powered campaign you want at least one more IP. Wired reflexes 1 only costs 11k nuyen (about 2 bp) and it well worth it. You have essence to spare.
Get the hardware skill, its your main skill for defeating security devices and electronic locks. Locksmith is nice but only works on older fashioned mechanical locks.
A synthacardium implant is a nice bonus to your athletics skills. Level 3 (max) costs 6 build points for +3 to all athletics dice pools, that a very efficient use of points.
If you are short on points and need to cut consider dropping either longarms (first choice), gunnery, or heavy weapons (I would drop this last). You have good combat options with pistols and automatics. Don't spread yourself too thin.
Edit: Didn't notice the sensitive system first time through. Thats a tough one to buy into. Even with your high edge, a unaugmented, non-magical character is the least supported option in Shadowrun. Unless you are playing in a low powered campaign, or just don't care about "being behind", these types of characters are very inefficient. Talk to your GM about expected power levels. It is very possible this type of build will place you somewhat "behind the curve" of other characters at the table.
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Rating 6 maglock sequencer is 18F. APDS rounds are 16F. Rating 5 fake SINs are 15F.
Hardware is a required skill to be a B&E specialist; you cannot currently bypass Maglocks, which are the most common type of lock in 2073, except by blasting the case off and then using your sequencer (and if it has an anti-tamper system, you'll set off the alarm). You also cannot bypass Cardreaders - another common system - without a Maglock Passkey.
In general, you have a lot of inefficiency - mostly caused by trying to be the infamous "mundane human with no augmentations," which is pretty much lighting a lot of stuff that makes you good at things on fire. If you want to do it anyways, get Hardware 4 (Maglock specialization), +1 logic, and scrape up for a Rating 4 Maglock Passkey, which will allow you to do your job. Also, a lot of GMs will not consider that Incompetence (Hacking) on a character who would blow chunks at hacking anyways to be legit.
Smartlink is something you put on Cybereyes, goggles, or contacts - you can't just have Smartlink, you have to put it into something.
Parashield Dart Pistol is Exotic Weapons, not whatever you think it is.
Although not base book only, take a look at my sig and look at the Spook for an example of a similar type of character.
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Arm slide for a Scorpion machine pistol?
Got big arms!
Lol. Well, arm slides are cinematic props anyhow. ;) I doubt they'd "work" as intended for most guns. Regardless, I don't see any RAW reason why the Ceska wouldn't work? Or maybe I'm missing something?
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Edit: Didn't notice the sensitive system first time through. Thats a tough one to buy into. Even with your high edge, a unaugmented, non-magical character is the least supported option in Shadowrun. Unless you are playing in a low powered campaign, or just don't care about "being behind", these types of characters are very inefficient. Talk to your GM about expected power levels. It is very possible this type of build will place you somewhat "behind the curve" of other characters at the table.
Thanks for the advice baronspam! I'll definitely take it into consideration. You raise a good point with IP. I'd honestly not even read that section until now. hahaha
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Thanks for the input umarovi! It's appreciated. I still have a lot to learn. Some comments/questions below.
Rating 6 maglock sequencer is 18F. APDS rounds are 16F. Rating 5 fake SINs are 15F.
I don't get it? Do I need to roll for availability tests at char gen?
Hardware is a required skill to be a B&E specialist; you cannot currently bypass Maglocks, which are the most common type of lock in 2073, except by blasting the case off and then using your sequencer (and if it has an anti-tamper system, you'll set off the alarm). You also cannot bypass Cardreaders - another common system - without a Maglock Passkey.
But I have a keycard copier? Can't I copy someone else's keycard and produce a passkey that way? I'm probably misunderstanding how break-in process works...
In general, you have a lot of inefficiency - mostly caused by trying to be the infamous "mundane human with no augmentations," which is pretty much lighting a lot of stuff that makes you good at things on fire. If you want to do it anyways, get Hardware 4 (Maglock specialization), +1 logic, and scrape up for a Rating 4 Maglock Passkey, which will allow you to do your job. Also, a lot of GMs will not consider that Incompetence (Hacking) on a character who would blow chunks at hacking anyways to be legit.
I pulled my Incompetence from the Street Samurai example character in the core book. That's an "official" character who would have even less need of hacking than me, so I don't see why a GM would balk.
Thanks again.
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I don't get it? Do I need to roll for availability tests at char gen?
Availability is capped at 12 for character creation.
It prevents people from blowing a Quarter-Million you can get at character creation on a used Tank. :P
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Bounce the character's efficiency (or lack thereof) off your would-be GM, not the internet. Opinions of your character will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of the archetypes (like the Street Samurai you mentioned) will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of what counts as a reasonable die pool will vary wildly.
What counts more than interner opinions, though, are what's expected in your game. There's nothing innately wrong with a mundane, unaugmented, human, if that's a reasonable level of competency for your game. But you'll want to talk to your GM and see if that's the case. How your character meets up to your table's expectations is a whole lot more important than how it meets up to ours.
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Or have your GM come here and listen to the insanity! ;D
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Yes, in some games, it's fine to be an unaugmented mundane human. Really it comes down to "talk to your GM about expected power level, maybe look at some other characters."
Re: the keycard copier, that only works if you HAVE someone else's keycard. If you don't, you need a maglock passkey - it's kind of like a "skeleton key."
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Bounce the character's efficiency (or lack thereof) off your would-be GM, not the internet. Opinions of your character will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of the archetypes (like the Street Samurai you mentioned) will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of what counts as a reasonable die pool will vary wildly.
What counts more than interner opinions, though, are what's expected in your game. There's nothing innately wrong with a mundane, unaugmented, human, if that's a reasonable level of competency for your game. But you'll want to talk to your GM and see if that's the case. How your character meets up to your table's expectations is a whole lot more important than how it meets up to ours.
This is very much it. Shadowrun's character build system has very little forced balanced to it. Character's with the same build point value can have wildly different levels of power and mechanical effectiveness. The important thing is to have one that fits into the campaign you are playing in. Overall, the character you posted is toward the lower end of the scale, but that doesn't mean its not a good fit for the table you will be playing at. A min/maxed cyber death machine is as disruptive to a low powered campaign as a lower powered character is to a powergamer campaign.
On the availability 12 thing, standard rules say that you can only start with gear that is rating 12 or lower. There is a five point positive quality in Runner's Companion called "Restricted Gear" that lets you buy one item of up to a 20 rating(either at creation, or you can save it and use it during play). You can take this quality up to 3 times. Again, check with your GM about how he is handling gear. But the "default" rule is nothing above 12 out of the box, and the Restricted Gear quality if you are using Runner's Companion.
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Anyone who wants to be a B&E guy needs to read over the Maglock rules (SR4A, p. 263) to get a handle on the options; passkey sometimes, sequencer sometimes, etc, but the Hardware skill plenty. I'd look into Skill Groups to tighten up some of the stuff you've got, and see if you couldn't drop a few of the level 1 skills you've got to free up enough points for Hardware.
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Or have your GM come here and listen to the insanity! ;D
I might just do that. In fact I did just do that. I myself am new to this version of Shadowrun; I last played it over 6 years ago back in 3rd edition. This campaign is going to be a learning experience for everyone involved I think. As a player for instance I never figured out magic as I never used it. I see that changing ;D.
Anyways some rules decisions:
-I don't care if what the availability of gear is for my characters, if some gear is too ridiculous I'll just veto it. If someone wants a tank they can have it. Good luck using it in downtown Seattle though..... Having an edge from rare cyber-wear or the like could be just the thing to set the PC's above the rest of the street trash.
-As far as power level goes I'm trying for more an investigatory type game so any level of player should work.
Also I have a question myself for the forums. Which rules supplement is best for general character creation? So far I have the core rulebook and arsenal because I've always been a bit of a gear obsessed myself.
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For what books to get- depends on how much you want to spend :)
If would get augmentation to go with arsenal. I also really like Runner's Companion. RC has advanced lifestyle rules, a bunch of new positive and negative qualities, and rules for making other metatypes, and other "optional" character types like changelings, AIs, etc.
From there it depends what type of characters have in your group. If you have a matrix specialist, especially a technomancer, the Unwired book has alot of neat options. If you aren't running a matrix heavy campaign its a lot of detail and record keeping that might be optional. Similar thing with Street magic. If you have a magicain in the party it has more spells, a bunch of new magic traditions to draw on, more spirits, magic enemies, etc. In a low magic campaign it can probably wait.
One thing you might seriously look at is a boxed set called Runner's Toolkit. This has all kinds of cool stuff in it thats good for new players. There is a starting adventure, a GM Screen, some master lists of gear, qualities, etc. There is modular quick build character system called PACS that can help someone knock out a character in a hurry. And my favorite is something called "Anatomy of a Shadowrun" that has a double column text, a story in fiction form in the left column and then a explanation of all the game mechanics to simulate the story in the right column.
If you want a setting book there are a couple of good options. There is a good Seattle book out for 4th ed and a recent book called Spy Games has a detailed write up about Denver.
From there there is a ton of other stuff, both in PDF only and print, but thats kind of the core where I would start.
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Augmentation, Arsenal, Unwired, Street Magic, and Runner's Companion are all good, although you should think carefully before allowing some of the alternate character concepts in Runner's Companion.
Attitude and Spy Games are mostly fluff of mediocre quality and also have some items, a few of which are neat.
Digital Grimoire, Gun Heaven, MilSpecTech, and This Old Drone all have a few nifty things each, mixed in with fair amounts of cruft.
Way of the Adept is "Adepts, we're so sorry, please forgive us for making you suck, please accept this power boost disguised as a quality."
You can read my full-length review of "WAR!" here (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=4098.0), and in all seriousness I recommend using the rules for milspec programs and commlinks so hackers have long-term upgrade options to wish for. It also has a few other neat things and a whooooole lot of borked stuff.
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, although you should think carefully before allowing some of the alternate character concepts in Runner's Companion.
Word. It takes a very special campaign to make a Sasquatch turned ghoul turned cyberzombie work as a player character. On the other hand, if you want to stat out some npcs or build infected to pc standards, its a neat book. I also think the changelings are far less game breaking than some of the other crazy stuff.
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Honestly, for a newish group and a newish GM (with varying levels of newishness based on edition), Runner's Toolkit is probably your best next purchase.
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Thanks for the feedback so far gentlemen. I think I may have dragged the thread a little off topic but input on what books are worth getting is definitely appreciated. It looks like Runner's Companion and Unwired are probably going to be my next purchases
More on Topic I'm pretty much responsible for making the other player's characters for my group as they don't have access to the rulebook at the moment. This is because we will be playing online by post with some Skype sessions thrown in if we can find the time. One of my players is really into hacking after playing Dues Ex so I put together a troll combat hacker for him (hence why Unwired might be a good buy). My other player is probably going to go with an adept face man who is addicted to Novacoke and uses a laser pistol and monowire whip built into his hand. I'll probably post these characters up here later once I write them up on the computer along with a sniper I made.
I looked at some of the character Ideas posted elsewhere on the forum and the characters I've made seem to hold up pretty well but I can't really know for sure until we start playing and I can get a better idea of what the quirks of the system are.
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Ok here goes the writeup for the Troll combat hacker I put together. The basic idea for this guy is he's ex military and was trained to be technical support for field troops by providing front line EW capability. That's why he has combat training and a bunch of offensive cyberwear. It's also why he is a SINer as he just got out of the military and is trying to find out what happened to an old high school buddy who recently died under mysterious circumstances. He is a standard 400BP build.
Race: troll (40bp)
Codeslinger (Hack on the fly; 10bp), Codeblock (Medic; +5bp), SINer (+5bp)
Attributes: 190bp
Bod: 6 Agi: 4(6) Rea: 3(6) Str: 6{8} Cha: 3 Int: 4 Log: 4(7) Wil: 3 Edge: 3
Skills: 132bp (I may be off by 10bp; I added up everything from my notes and came up with 10 bp so I dumped them here. Only place I think I could have lost them was in gear.) Electronics Skill Group: 3, Close Combat Skill Group: 2, Firearms Skill Group: 3, Cracking Skill Group: 4, Perception: 1 (Visual 3), First Aid (Combat Wounds 3)
Gear: 28bp (140,000)
Cyberwear/Biowear: Rating 3 Cerebral Booster, Wired Reflexes 1, Reaction Enhancers 2, Alphawear Muscle Replacement 2, Datajack.
Computer stuff: Transys Avalon commlink w/HotSIM module and subvocal mic (response 4, signal4) with custom OS running Firewall 6, System 6, Analyze 5, Browse 5, command 5, edit 3, encrypt 5, reality filter 5, blackhammer 3, armor 3, biofeedback filter 3, attack 5, defuse 3, track 3, exploit 6, data bomb 3, ECCM 3, decrypt 3, spoof 6, sniffer 3, stealth 3.
Other Gear: Extendable Baton, Ingram Smartgun X w/ quickdraw holster, 300 EX-Explosive rounds, 300 normal rounds, 10 extra clips and lvl 6 fake license, armor jacket, rating 3 area jammer, rating 6 fake license for wired reflexes, glasses w/ flare compensation rating 3 vision enhancement, imagelink and smartlink,10 frag grenades and 5 thermal smoke grenades, 1 month low lifestyle
Contacts: 10bp. Haven't decided what to do with these yet.
The main thing I'm worried about is this guy being a decent hacker as I haven't gone over the new hacking rules too carefully. I've envisioned him as a brute force over technique sort; hence why he is incompetent at medic. The idea is he busts in the front door of the enemy comm network, crashes it, then shoots them all in the face while they are trying to figure out what happened to their computers. He's a troll because it's a cheap way to be tough and enemies shouldn't expect "the dumb troll" to be the computer expert.
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The troll combat hacker is pretty similar to the troll combat hacker from the Archetypes (see my sig), I'm not sure you saw that already and used it as a starting point or not. If not, take a look.
It looks like you are intentionally going for a slightly lower level of power (such as by taking Firearms and Close Combat rather than just one skill from each, and having high Logic), which is good if this guy is supposed to be hanging out with an unaugmented mundane character. I will suggest that if you are concerned about his actual ability to hack, you should replace the Cerebral Boosters with PuSHeD and Encephalon from Augmentation, if you have that, since Cerebral Boosters don't help you hack whereas those things do.
Program ratings are capped by System, and System is capped by Response. You need Response 6 to run all those high-rating programs. Also, you have to upgrade Firewall and System (thus they are limited to upgrades of 2 more than the OS you need to buy).
You will save your player endless annoyance if you just have programs at 6 or 3.
Stealth 3 is a terrible idea, that is probably the most important program for hacking. Common use programs are so cheap you really should have them at 6.
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Unfortunately the only books I have are the main rulebook and arsenal right now :'(. Umaro, I saw what you had put together but unfortunately since I didn't have all your sources I tried what I could with the base book. The info on programs should be handy and the advice on stealth is just the sort of thing I'm looking for though.
Looking back through the hacking rules attributes don't seem to figure into it all all (Which seems a bit odd). Time to dump the cerebral boosters for more combat cyberwear then in lou of gear from augmentation. Also time to go back and read the fine print on putting a computer together and get one that actually works...........