Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: rungok on <01-26-12/0337:38>
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So I have the opportunity to try a new character, and I've been entertaining the idea of making a Jensen/Denton-esque character. And by that I mean completely modded out.
But I have very little experience with builds, and am trying to get a good grasp of what's really available and what I should be concerned about.
I know most augs have an essence loss, but how low can you go safely? How much safety room should I leave?
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For that matter, is Cybernetics a good choice, or should I try to get genetherapy/Bioware? Both? Neither? All of the above?
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First off, remember to use the handy "Edit" button up at the top of your post, rather than double-posting. It's just good manners.
Secondly, as long as you have a positive number for your Essence, even if it's 0.000001, you're fine. The story-fluff says you're supposed to get colder, more detached, and less "human" as you start getting down around and below the 1.00 mark. However, I don't imagine that you'd want to play a character styled after the Deus Ex protagonists as lovey-dovey, sensitive, or emotional so playing the character as intended would do just fine for the "altered personality" bit.
As for Bioware and Genetherapy... both are better, but prohibitively expensive. Generally people go for a mix of all three.
The big ticket item is Wired Reflexes; it'll eat up a big chunk of essence, but Synaptic Booster is too expensive to be worth it with a standard 400BP build. Combine that with Muscle Toner and Muscle Enhancement and Dermal Plating, and you've got the basics of a decent Street Samurai (the "official" name for the "Augmented Combat Badass" archetype).
Cybereyes are generally avoided in favor of cybernetic Contact Lenses + Glasses or Goggles EXCEPT if you take maximum-level Cybereyes and throw in all the goodies... which would make perfect sense for your character concept.
Also, if you want to really take a soak in the awesome-sauce, go with the Changeling (Class III SURGE) Quality for 15 BP. It gets you 30 points of Positive Metagenetic Quality and 15 points of Negative Metagenetic Qualities, while only taking up 15 BP off your 35 total BP for Positive Qualities.
Take Metagenetic Improvement (Agility) (+1 to Minimum and Natural Maximum on your Agility!) for 20BP, then take 10 other BP of Positive Metagenetic qualities and whatever Negative Metagenetic Qualities that fit your flavor.
Then, for 5 more BP, take Genetic Heritage so you get Genetic Optimization (Agility), which is +1 to Natural Maximum, at no cost in Essence or Nuyen, since you inherited it naturally from one of your parents.
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Oh. Sorry 'bout that.
I think I saw somewhere that if you mix n' match bioware and cyberware up one of them only takes up half the essence loss. Is that right?
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I think I saw somewhere that if you mix n' match bioware and cyberware up one of them only takes up half the essence loss. Is that right?
Right. Whichever one you have less of (by total Essence Cost) gets a 50% reduction in that Essence Cost.
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So if I have the money to mix and match the two, I can cram that much more into my character. Interesting.
I have heard theres a difference between the different 'ware' types of augs. Like alpha, beta, and deltaware. What's the advantages and disadvantages of deltaware as opposed to alpha?
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So if I have the money to mix and match the two, I can cram that much more into my character. Interesting.
I have heard theres a difference between the different 'ware' types of augs. Like alpha, beta, and deltaware. What's the advantages and disadvantages of deltaware as opposed to alpha?
Might want to sit down and re-read the book. A lot of this stuff is right in the writeup on Cyberware and Bioware. ;)
But, that said, the higher the grade the lower the Essence cost and the higher the Nuyen cost.
EDIT: Also, go check out this thread (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=4495.0) by UmaroVI. It has some great write-ups of character archetypes and advice on how to play them. Good for learning what works and why.
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Thanks.
Like I said. I was entertaining the idea of the character, but I am not sitting in front of the book yet.
I know more about mages and adepts than I do augmentations, and am admittedly fuzzy of memory on the subject.
Would there be a benefit to getting only one Cybereye over two? The core book only has both eyes replaced, but what about someone who just lost one?
Also, I see that it says you can only get standard and alphaware at character creation. Is there a quality that lets you get a better grade duruing character creation? I couldn't find one in the core book.
[EDIT] Better? Cleaned it up. Sorry again.
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Thanks.
Like I said. I was entertaining the idea of the character, but I am not sitting in front of the book yet.
I know more about mages and adepts than I do augmentations, and am admittedly fuzzy of memory on the subject.
Would there be a benefit to getting only one Cybereye over two? The core book only has both eyes replaced, but what about someone who just lost one?
Also, I see that it says you can only get standard and alphaware at character creation. Is there a quality that lets you get a better grade duruing character creation? I couldn't find one in the core book.
You did it again. Seriously, you need to use the "Modify" button, not double-post.
Yes, you can get a single Cyber-eye, stats and prices are in the book "Augmentation", and no there's no quality to get higher than Alphaware. Really, though, with the way the price goes (Alpha = 2x, Beta = 4x, Delta = 10x), it's just not worth it to buy higher at CGen. The Availability and cost of the items is going to be more restrictive than the Essence cost.
A pretty comprehensive list of what you eventually want, if you're going for a typical "Cyborg Ninja Combat Monster" type character is going to be something what's below, in the Spoiler box... essence costs are for Standard Grade, you'll obviously need to buy higher to make it all fit, but that's what earning money by playing is for, right?
Cyberware
Biomonitor Implant (0.3 Ess)
Gives feedback on health status; really good thing to have with a Pain Editor
Commlink Implant (0.2 Ess)
Internally installed Commlink. Combined with the Simrig and Cybereyes it means you can Skinlink your weapons and turn off your Wifi, which makes you nearly unhackable.
Cybereyes 4 (0.5 Ess)
Replacement eyes; fill the Capacity with all sorts of other goodies.
Dermal Plating 3 (1.5 Ess)
+3/+3 Armor
Simrig Implant (0.5 Ess)
Two way, full-sensory input/output with AR, for making full use of that Commlink Implant.
(NOTE: Be sure to carry around a cheap-as-hell "dummy" commlink in public to broadcast your fake SIN)
Bioware
Bone Density Augmentation 4 (1.2 Ess)
+4 to Damage Resistance checks; Unarmed does (STR/2+3)P damage.
Muscle Toner 4 (0.8 Ess)
+4 Agility
Muscle Enhancement 4 (0.8 Ess)
+4 Strength
Pain Editor (0.3 Ess)
Ignore Stun damage penalties, including being knocked out, while active, also +1 Willpower -1 Intuition while active.
Platelet Factory (0.2 Ess)
Automatically reduce all incoming damage of 2 or more by 1 box
Suprathyroid Gland (0.7 Ess)
+1 Body, +1 Agil, +1 Reac, +1 Str; stacks with Toner and Enhancement
Synaptic Booster 3 (1.5 Ess)
+3 Reaction, +3 Initiative Passes. Start with Wired Reflexes 2 to save money, then switch to this
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Okay I found some things I want to do, but a few of them are marked forbidden instead of just restricted and I can't find where it says that affects character creation.
What's the ruling on forbidden items during character creation? I mean I know what the ramifications of having forbidden gear is out of creation, but is it limited?
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No, it's just based on the number. 12F can be bought at chargen, 14R can't.
I do recommend looking at the various street samurai in my signature for some examples; it's pretty hard to get right on your first try.
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Thanks. I'm looking at them now. I'll post the purchases I was thinking of before committing.
Any other things I should take into consideration?
[EDIT: Added the cyber purchases]
Race: Ork
Body 7
Agility 5
Reaction 3
Strength 5
Charisma 4
Intuition 3
Logic 3
Willpower 3
Edge 3
Relevant Qualities:
Nano Intolerance (negative)
Biocompatability: Cybernetics (Positive)
Cyberware:
Commlink (4/4)
Cybereyes Rating (4)
+Flare Compensation
+Low Light Vision
+Thermographic Vision
+Smartlink
+Vision Enhancement 3
+Eye Light System
+Protective Covers
Biomonitor
Simrig
Cyber-ears rating (2)
+Audio Enhancement 3
+Balance Augmenter
+Damper
Dermal Plating (2)
Internal Air Tank
Bioware:
Tailored Pheremones (2)
Muscle Augmentation (2)
Muscle Toner (2)
Bone Density (4)
The character I am trying to build is supposed to be a street sam/face build, with some effort into doing legwork/investigation.
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You have a bad case of average-stats-itis. This punishes you now by making you not good at things, and punishes you later because of how karma prices for increasing things works. In particular, low Reaction and low Intuition are killer for a street samurai. Low Willpower is dangerous too.
It is generally a good idea to have 35 points of negative qualities. If you have to you can bullshit them by taking stuff like Mild Addiction (Betel), Incompetence (Things I don't care about), Scorched on non-hackers (which is explicitly allowed), etc, although I encourage you to take fun and character-defining ones instead.
If you're going to have a good commlink, have either programs and skills to use it, or programs and an agent to use it (for an example of a skills-free commlink setup, look at the Spook in my sig).
Cybereyes are a very iffy purchase because you can just wear goggles that do the same stuff. If you get them it should be solely because you think they are cool - don't operate under the illusion that they are effective.
Ditto for Cyberears.
Dermal Plating is just flat-out bad. It costs way too much for what it does. If you want augmentations that make you tougher, Trauma Dampener and armored cyberlimbs are much, much better.
Tailored Pheremones 2 is a bad purchase simply because you'll want rating 3 eventually and you can't upgrade, only junk and switch. Try to start with Rating 3.
Bone Density Augmentation is bad for everyone except very, very specific types of adepts for the same reason as Dermal Plating - too expensive for not enough value. Incidentally, if you care about punching people, you want to use Shock Gloves (or Shock Hands).
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Okay. Maybe I should just pose the character Idea I'm thinking about and see if I can get some suggestions for augmentations.
The character I want to play is a 'retired' or 'perma-vacationed' security corp operative. I wanted the character to have a Deus Ex Kind of feel but not be a direct rip. More of following the theme of it. Let me go into the qualities to kind of explain it.
Negative Qualities:
SINer 5 - Real SIN - Wasn't a shadowrunner until recently
Day Job 5 - Works part time as a low rate security guard for a low importance position
Nano Intolerance - Body just doesn't like the little buggers.
Lost Loved One - Had a wife. She was horribly injured in an accident that his corp was inevitably found at fault for. Though recovered, ultimately she won't speak to him again and has moved to places unknown.
Records on File - The Parent Company has recent files on him due to his recent employment and legal action.
Big Regret - Not being able to be there to save his wife (and his marriage, for that matter).
Positive Qualities:
Biocompatability 10 - Cyberware - Biologically better suited to cybernetics
Tough as Nails 10 - Just born tougher
Trust Fund 10 - Settled stipend due to legal case. Though he is not required to work (Medium lifestyle is sustained) he still works to feel less useless.
Guts 5 - Made of mentally Sterner stuff.
I am open to making changes of course.
[Edit] I was also thinking about skills and gear of course. Just didn't pick those as they are kinda modular depending on 'how' I want to play the operative.
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Tough as Nails is kind of bad - you should probably just buy more Body instead.
Augmentations: I would actually check out the Spook archetype in my sig. It sounds like you're going for a "Former Company Man" type of character, and the Spook is designed to fill that niche. The Spook is human but can be orkified easily enough; you can also just look for inspiration.
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Wow. It looks like you have a build for everything. I'm impressed!
Any suggestions for changing up the spook to fit the character idea I had? Additionally I had was unsure about the combination of positive and negative qualities I had set relating to his lifestyle.
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I think your qualities look fine mostly, but I would drop Biocompatibility - it's just not really that great.
To modify the spook:
Swap out the original negatives and swap yours in.
Change from Human to Ork (20 bp)
Edge drops to 5 (no longer getting +1 from human) (0 bp)
Body goes to 4(5) due to Ork (-20 bp)
Strength goes to 3(4) due to Ork (0 bp)
Drop Charisma to 4 (Orks have 1/5 Charisma) (-10 bp)
Buy Trust Fund for 10 bp (10 bp).
You can probably scare up 5 bp for Guts if you want. It is alright, if not great, and probably worth about the 5 bp it costs. I would probably be dropping Athletics to get that, and spend the other 5 bp on something else; maybe more contacts or something.
At that point you have a perfectly good starting character.
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Wow thanks!
I think I can use this.
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do yourself the favour and buy Move by wire 2, and then buy Skillsoft clusters from Unwired. amazing how that works. You will need restricted gear 1 quality but this will give you maybe 15 skills at rating 3-4 for a few bucks. also geting +4 dodge, +2 IP and +2 RE is not something you find laying on the street
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If you're going for a "tribute to Adam Jensen (http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Jensen)" character, then there's a couple of ways to do him. If you're trying to do straight conversion, you'll likely need a ton of cash and karma. Adam is a nearly full body replacement face/combat/sneaking/hacking master. That's hard to do in Shadowrun as a starting character. Then again, if you're willing to assume high starting cash (maybe 500,000Y), you might pull it off.
If you're willing to focus on only some of aspects, you can go further. As mentioned before, Umaro's Spook works quite well. The most like Adam in my opinion though is the Generalist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ozdYUhCaaIBdRAaRV8rOLBnIzHsjxdI31LR60rlXJk/edit?hl=en_US). He's a combat/face/hacking/technical character. More importantly, he has an obvious cyberlimb. Unfortunately, he's only an okay sneaker at best, but that can be improved as you buy more cyberlimbs.
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In the build you posted, you can't have the Rating 4 Cyber eyes without the Restricted Gear quality. (I'd never go for Rating 4 myself anyway. I always get everything I want into Rating 3 just fine--and despise this idea some people have about Cyber Eyes somehow being a bad choice).
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In the build you posted, you can't have the Rating 4 Cyber eyes without the Restricted Gear quality. (I'd never go for Rating 4 myself anyway. I always get everything I want into Rating 3 just fine--and despise this idea some people have about Cyber Eyes somehow being a bad choice).
In my book rating 4 cybereyes are avail 8 and the accessories all have independent availabilities. Was it changed in a later printing?
Also how do you fit everything in Rating 3? I would think you would want Flare Compensation, Low-Light Vision, Smartlink, Thermo, Vision Enhancement, and Vision Mag. That's 13 capacity used. I guess you could drop some stuff and wear contacts, but that defeats the point of having cybereyes.
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In the build you posted, you can't have the Rating 4 Cyber eyes without the Restricted Gear quality. (I'd never go for Rating 4 myself anyway. I always get everything I want into Rating 3 just fine--and despise this idea some people have about Cyber Eyes somehow being a bad choice).
In my book rating 4 cybereyes are avail 8 and the accessories all have independent availabilities. Was it changed in a later printing?
Also how do you fit everything in Rating 3? I would think you would want Flare Compensation, Low-Light Vision, Smartlink, Thermo, Vision Enhancement, and Vision Mag. That's 13 capacity used. I guess you could drop some stuff and wear contacts, but that defeats the point of having cybereyes.
In the SR4A core book, rating 4 has an availability of 16. As to your second question, for most characters I don't mess with Vision Mag. It's mainly good for snipers anyway. Occasionally, I'll reduce the Enhancement by 1 level to make room. I'd rather save Restricted Gear for something bigger.
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In the SR4A core book, rating 4 has an availability of 16. As to your second question, for most characters I don't mess with Vision Mag. It's mainly good for snipers anyway. Occasionally, I'll reduce the Enhancement by 1 level to make room. I'd rather save Restricted Gear for something bigger.
I have them having a capacity of 16 and an avail of 8 on my pdf and dead tree copy. They have capacity going from 4/8/12/16 and avail -/4/6/8.
As for Vision Mag, it's nice for short range guns (like pistols) since sometimes you find yourself 15+ meters away and could use the help. Ideally you'll zoom before combat time starts. However at extreme range, it'll might still be worth burning a simple action to remove the -6 penalty in some cases.
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As for Vision Mag, it's nice for short range guns (like pistols) since sometimes you find yourself 15+ meters away and could use the help. Ideally you'll zoom before combat time starts. However at extreme range, it'll might still be worth burning a simple action to remove the -6 penalty in some cases.
Or, for those that don't want to wait, taking the Hawk Eye quality (+1 Visual Perception, reduce Range Penalties by one category; not compatible with vision mag) plus putting the Improved Range Finder mod (-1 to Range Penalties) on your guns means no penalty out to Long Range, and Extreme Range is a -2.
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If you're going for a "tribute to Adam Jensen (http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Jensen)" character, then there's a couple of ways to do him. If you're trying to do straight conversion, you'll likely need a ton of cash and karma. Adam is a nearly full body replacement face/combat/sneaking/hacking master. That's hard to do in Shadowrun as a starting character. Then again, if you're willing to assume high starting cash (maybe 500,000Y), you might pull it off.
If you're willing to focus on only some of aspects, you can go further. As mentioned before, Umaro's Spook works quite well. The most like Adam in my opinion though is the Generalist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ozdYUhCaaIBdRAaRV8rOLBnIzHsjxdI31LR60rlXJk/edit?hl=en_US). He's a combat/face/hacking/technical character. More importantly, he has an obvious cyberlimb. Unfortunately, he's only an okay sneaker at best, but that can be improved as you buy more cyberlimbs.
And you will possibly be able to punch three times in a row if you are lucky enought...
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That's true, but I don't have charges to my punching function ;)
I was reading through the augmentations book. Would it be more effective for me to get a bunch of nanoware and a nanohive to support them instead of a few cybernetics? I saw that nanoware doesn't have an essence cost but nanocybernetics do. (This could also be in-theme if I go back to the original Deus Ex)
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well nanohive is quite cheap in both nuyen and essence
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Yes and no. There are some useful pieces of nanoware. Never install a nanohive directly; you want to get a partial cyberlimb (hand, foot, lower leg, or lower arm - not your mainhand arm) and put a nanohive in that. There are several types of useful nanites:
Universal Nantidotes are as close as you can get to toxin immunity. Toxins are nasty so this is good.
Learning Stimulus nanites are nifty. Start with a whole bunch of Knowledge and Language skills at rating 1, then use LS to bump them up to 3 for free.
Limbic and Neocortical are useful if you have noncombat Intuition or Logic (respectively) skills you care about.
O-Cells are like Universal Nantidotes, but disease rather than poison. Disease tends to be much rarer and there's other options to treat it, but this deserves mention because if your GM runs the infection rules for HMHVV as (very, very badly) written, this is the only thing that will keep you alive if you so much as touch a ghoul.
However, nanoware is not a substitute for another type of ware. It does nifty tricks, but it doesn't make you better at your core skills. You can't get Nanoware "instead of" other stuff, you can, however, benefit from getting it in addition to other stuff.
One catch - they aren't crazy expensive, but nanohives have 5xRating availability. If you want more than 2 types of nanites, you should wait for a good nanohive after chargen.
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Okay. Thanks for the advice.
Is there a reason you don't want to install it directly? Additionally, can't I just have more than one hive of lower rating?
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Okay. Thanks for the advice.
Is there a reason you don't want to install it directly? Additionally, can't I just have more than one hive of lower rating?
Because a Rating 1 Nanohive costs 0.75 Essence, but only 2 Capacity in a cyberlimb. Even a Synthetic Hand or Foot, which has the least capacity of any Cyberlimb, will fit a Nanohive, and only takes up 0.25 Essence.
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Okay. Thanks for the advice.
Is there a reason you don't want to install it directly? Additionally, can't I just have more than one hive of lower rating?
Because a Rating 1 Nanohive costs 0.75 Essence, but only 2 Capacity in a cyberlimb. Even a Synthetic Hand or Foot, which has the least capacity of any Cyberlimb, will fit a Nanohive, and only takes up 0.25 Essence.
Well... That's a great reason. Okay so I want to do the Cybereyes for thematic reasons cause I know you can get all those things in a sweet pair of goggles. But that leaves me with 3 capacity open in them. Does anyone have any suggestions for what to put in them? I have all the eye based mods except the eye drone.
... Could I put my comlink in it? It might be a bad idea, my instincts tell me.
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Okay. Thanks for the advice.
Is there a reason you don't want to install it directly? Additionally, can't I just have more than one hive of lower rating?
Because a Rating 1 Nanohive costs 0.75 Essence, but only 2 Capacity in a cyberlimb. Even a Synthetic Hand or Foot, which has the least capacity of any Cyberlimb, will fit a Nanohive, and only takes up 0.25 Essence.
Well... That's a great reason. Okay so I want to do the Cybereyes for thematic reasons cause I know you can get all those things in a sweet pair of goggles. But that leaves me with 3 capacity open in them. Does anyone have any suggestions for what to put in them? I have all the eye based mods except the eye drone.
... Could I put my comlink in it? It might be a bad idea, my instincts tell me.
Check Augmentation, p38 and 39, for a couple more options.
There's an Eye-Light system that lets you see with Low-Light vision out to 25 meters, and gives you full illumination in about a 8" circle, focused on the center of your field-of-vision, at arms'-length.
Microscopic Vision will give you +2 to tests that require the manipulation of small bits.
There's also the Eye Laser system, which defaults as an infrared communication system (400 meters, immune to jamming), and has several plugins that can upgrade it. The plugins make it a targeting designator, a laser microphone, laser rangefinder, and a cutting laser. The Eye Laser costs 3 Capacity no matter how many of the plugins for it you buy for it, too.
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You can only put eye mods into cybereyes; you can't put a commlink into one.
You could get two rating 2 nanohives or something, but that eats up more Capacity and Capacity is good, because you can put stuff like Armor into cyberlimbs.
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For the cybereyes, get either eye light or vision magnification (whichever one you are missing), and save that last point of capacity to get retinal duplication, when you have a lot more money.
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Cybereyes are a very iffy purchase because you can just wear goggles that do the same stuff. If you get them it should be solely because you think they are cool - don't operate under the illusion that they are effective.
I have to disagree with this, low-light vision mod combined with eye light system is the best you can get for visibility mods up to range of 25m(plenty enought inside buildings) and that combo is only available for cyber-eyes.
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It isn't only available for cybereyes. You can just put the eye light system directly into your eyes for only .1 essence - half as much as rating 1 cybereyes. Everything else you care about can go into goggles/contacts/etc. There's also a number of useful things like T-rays and Scatter X-Rays that can't go into your eyes and thus you want goggles anyways.
The only good reasons to get cybereyes, IMO, are:
It looks cool, huh huh huh huh
You are a magician of a metatype that gets crappy natural visions, and you want to be able to target people with Thermo and Low-Light.
You give a significant amount of a crap about skills that benefit from Microscopic Vision, in which case getting a Rating 2 Single Cybereye for just that is worth it.
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imo you can also use LowLight googles/lenses, combined with flashlight in your hand/under barell :)
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People can see a flashlight, but eye light systems are invisible to other people.
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One would assume that if there is way to instal this kind of system into the cybereye, it would be possible to do so with flashlight...
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One would assume many things about technology in SR, but that doesn't make them true.
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sad but trues
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It isn't only available for cybereyes. You can just put the eye light system directly into your eyes for only .1 essence - half as much as rating 1 cybereyes. Everything else you care about can go into goggles/contacts/etc.
How exactly does that combination work, i think the goggles might cause some interference to the beam of light coming from your eyes 8)
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If eye light systems are incompatible with goggles/contacts/glasses, that just makes them crap in general because you give up all the goodies that can't go in cybereyes or that are inefficient to put in them. However, there's no indication of this in the description of any of those.
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It isn't only available for cybereyes. You can just put the eye light system directly into your eyes for only .1 essence - half as much as rating 1 cybereyes. Everything else you care about can go into goggles/contacts/etc.
How exactly does that combination work, i think the goggles might cause some interference to the beam of light coming from your eyes 8)
They could be polarized goggles/contacts/glasses. Since the eye light system is polarized, you can set up a lens/filter that'll let the light though without issue.
Edit- Light not laser