Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Solodice on <01-08-13/2252:19>

Title: Private Investigator
Post by: Solodice on <01-08-13/2252:19>

So for a PbP game on here I'm running a private investigator type. Now I will say this about Winters (PI) I made him out not to be in a war zone but he knows his way around a pistol or shotgun when stuff gets messy. Now when stuff needs to be locked at like say a crime scene or looking for something specific Winters is the guy to go to. So here he is and I want to here some thoughts on him.

Name: Cappi Augustus
Alias: Winters
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Nationality: U.C.A.S
Lifestyle: Renton Apartment (3 months payed)
Comforts: Low
Entertainment: Low
Necessities: Middle
Neighborhood: Low
Security: Middle
Qualities:
-Fully Stocked Bar [1LP]
-Stocked Up [1LP]
Donut Shop (Rating 1) [-2LP]
Leaky Faucet [-2LP]
Loud Neighborhood [-1LP]
The Building that Time Forgot [-1LP]
Karma Spent: 0
Physical Description: Winters stands at 5'11 and weighs 200 pounds. Has an athletic build that makes him appear more as a beach boy more than a private eye. Has a good amount of stubble but hard to notice due to it being blonde. Has deep blue eyes that can be unsettling at times. Keeps his blonde hair in a buzzcut. Has a noticeable scar across his nose and three bullet wound scars on his back.

Dresses with a long coat joined by a white undershirt and plain pants. Hands are covered by black racers gloves that also serve as his commlinks AR gloves as well.

Personality/background Winters was born and raised in Seattle by his Italian family and lived a happy but at the same time unhappy childhood. Winters father died when he was 15 to go-gangers and this lead to a deep depression throughout high school. Winters mother couldn't afford to live in Downtown Seattle any more when his father passed so the two of them moved to Renton. In Renton Winters feel deeper and deeper into depression and tried to take his life when he was 17 but failed when his mother caught him. Winters mother then sent him off to counselling and this is where he got his interest in detective work. The counseling program allowed Winters with an outlet and that was a junior detective program. Winters, after graduating high school, would later go to the Lone Star police academy in Seattle but would drop out months later.

Winters then started his own private eye business when he was 21 and made a nice little name for himself down in Renton as  a tough, mean, pistol slinging, brat. Winters, at 24, got caught up in the shadow running by being tricked into it by a Johnson but the trick served as a gateway drug. Winters enjoyed running the shadows and re-tuned his private eye business specifically to run in the shadows.

Winters is a very quiet man but he can be loud at times. He prefers his actions to do most of his talking.

Attributes

Body	Agility	Reaction	Strength
3	3(4)	4(5)	3(5)
Charisma	Intuition	Logic	Willpower
3	5	3	3
Edge	Magic/Resonance	Essence	Initiative
2	0	1.7	9(10)

Positive Qualities
Hawk Eye
Fame (Local)
Common Sense
School of Hard Knocks
Photographic Memory
Negative Qualities
Addiction (Mild) (Alcohol)
Dependent (Demanding)
Mysterious Implant
Active Skills

Athlectics Skill Group Steath Skill Group/b]	2 4
Dodge Longarms Perception Pistols Negotiation Unarmed Combat Tracking	5 3 5 4 4 3 4

Knowledge Skills ( [Logic + Intuition] x 3 free points)

Area Knowledge: Seattle (Renton) Bars and Clubs (Seattle) Firearms Gangs Underworld

4 3 3 3 4

Language Skills

English	N
Italian	6

Cyber/Bioware

Cyberware	Essence	Cost	Notes
Muscle Replacements (Rating 2) Wired Reflexes (Rating 1) Attention Compressor (Rating 3)	2 0.4 0.3	10,000¥ 11,000¥ 9,000

Gear (¥)

Form Fitting Half Body Suit Synergist Longcoat -Concealable Holster Clothing ST Forearm Guards ST Shin Guards ST Arm Casings Ruger Thunderbolt -Spare Clips (4)-Smartgun System, Internal Terracotta Arms Caravan -Imagining Scope-Shock Pad, Thermal Suppressor-Smartgun System, Internal, Spare Clips (2) Renraku Sensei -Subvocal Mic-AR Gloves-Recap Nix (OS)-Firewall 3-Browse (Rating 3)-Armor Case (Rating 5)-Bionmetric Lock- Agent (Rating 4: Copy Protection Rating 4, Registration)- Responce 4 Tag Eraser Nanopaste Disguise (Small Container) 2 Hollowed Books Voice Mask Fake SIN (Rating 5) (Jason Yielder) Fake License (Rating 4) (Ruger Thunderbolt) Fake License (Rating 4) (Private Investigator) Contact Lenses (Rating 3) Low Light-Smartlink-Flare Compensation-Smartlink 20 Standard RFID Tags Forensic Tool Kit 4 Pasteel Restraints Maglock Sequencer (Rating 3) Autopicker (Rating 4) 10 Ammo: Flechette Rounds (Shotguns) 20 Scent-masking Cigarettes 48 Ammo: EX-Explosive Rounds (Heavy Pistols) 20 Ammo: EX-Explosive Rounds (Sports Rifles) Earbuds (Rating 2) -Select Sound Filter (Rating 3)-Audio Enhancement (Rating 3)

900¥ 2,000 20 200 150 175 1,705 1,905 14, 850 150 500 100 500 5,000 400 400 600 1 500 200 600 800 100 200 920 480 200

Vehicles
Mercury Comet
-Key Lock (Rating 6)
-Concealable Holster (under the passenger’s seat)
Vehicle Sensor
-Camera Neutralizer (Rating 4)
-Radio Signal Scanner (Rating 6)

Handling	Accel	Speed	Pilot	Body	Armor	Sensor	Availability	Cost
0	15/30	110	2	10	6	1 (Signal: 5)	0	15,260¥

Contacts Contact C/L Summer Hillmen (Bartender) George Celldew (Info-Broker) Boom Boom (Blogger) Jackie Battle (Fixer) 3/2 4/3 4/1 5/2

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Whiskeyjack on <01-08-13/2313:06>

Big case of averyage-attribute-itis. Logic isn't even super relevant to most of your skills...I'd drop it a bit and add to Agility.

Skip Dodge, go for the Athletics group and depend on Gymnastic dodge + R3 Synthcardium.

Some of your pools in skills related to your archetype are 5 dice. That really isn't going to do...anything. Chargen skills are best at 1 (improve later, but want a bit now) or 4 (need very good now) - it avoids scaling karma costs in favor of the flat BP costs. Same idea as with Attributes.

Lucky isn't worth it unless you just go whole-hog and buy Edge 8 at chargen.

I'm surprised you don't have Con. You're going to be trying to get info from people who don't want to give it. Goes great with Disguise and Infiltration.

You probably want Hardware to break maglocks during infiltration and investigation.

Get an attention co-processor, it helps with Perception a lot and is pretty cheap.

Your negative quality of "Allergy: Spices" is really too vague, in my opinion.

Deliberately avoiding FFBA + PPP?

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: UmaroVI on <01-08-13/2314:37>

You have Lucky and Edge 2?

You are paying 10 bp and a Body to be a human.

You have no logic skills. None. -1 Logic, +1 Intuition is a no-brainer and I would really recommend losing another Logic for +1 Reaction.

You have Disguise 4, Infiltration 2, Palming 2, and Shadowing 5, for which you are paying 52 points. You should just pay 40 points for Stealth 4, and make Perception 6.

Blades, Dodge, Pistols, Longarms, and Gymnastics [from Athletics] is about 3 combat skills too many. Specifically:

You never actually want to attack with Blades; even against people in melee with you, you are better off shooting them.

You don't need Dodge and Blades and Gymnastics. You need one source of melee passive defense and one source of full defense, not two of each.

Lots of skills at 2-3 is bad; try to cut down a little and get skills to 4 for karma efficiency.

I would recommend cutting Blades and Dodge and picking up Unarmed, or ditching Blades and Athletics (or cutting Athletics down to 1) and getting dodge.

I notice you are a PI who doesn't have Con or Negotiation. This is a problem for you, because those are your options for opposing Con, which means you suck at telling if people are lying to you. You do have Etiquette. I would consider dropping that and picking up Con, or Negotiation, or the Influence group instead.

Dermal plating is not very good. If you're going to get cheap stuff at chargen and upgrade later [nothing wrong with this if you don't mind being less good now for more good later], I would recommend firstly checking if used 'ware is allowed [Augmentation, half price, x1.2 essence], and second if you want "cheap and crappy but effective" - Muscle Replacement is the way to roll. The high essence cost doesn't matter when you have little ware (and you replace it later), and it's cheap and efficient. Attention Coprocessor is another very cheap and very good piece of ware.

Your armor is heavier than you can wear. You should probably wear a FFBA half-suit or full suit and the Synergist coat if you want the -2 concealing option, then supplement with PPP to get to your cap.

You should be using goggles/glasses/contacts/earbuds with vision and hearing enhancements. This also lets you get smartlink instead of laser sights.

Neither pistols nor shotguns can accept Gas Vent systems. The T-250 is a terrible weapon whose only use is being the only concealable longarm; as a pistols/longarms user it is pointless. The Ruger Thunderbolt is a good gun, you just need to mod it differently; check the first link in my sig and the Gunslinger or Ghost for examples / other good pistols. As for longarms, the AA16 is the best shotgun in a "no contest" sort of way because it has magical gas-vents, but you can't start with it. The Barrett is the best sniper rifle but again you can't start with it. You could use restricted gear, but I don't recommend that; I suggest starting with a sport rifle as a poor man's sniper rifle. The Terracotta Arms Caravan (Gun Heaven 2) is my recommendation.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Solodice on <01-09-13/0030:55>

Well good thing you're all here to help a new guy like me (not in the politest way either).

OP has been edited. So how about now?

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Bushw4cker on <01-09-13/0337:46>

You have Muscle Replacement and Augmentation?

From the book
Muscle Replacement: Implanted, vat-grown synthetic muscles
replace the user’s own. Calcium treatments and skeletal reinforcement
allow an overall increase in the user’s strength. Muscle replacement increases
both the Strength and Agility attributes by its rating. It cannot
be combined with muscle augmentation or muscle toner bioware

I'd go with the skills you like, Wish character gen didn't punish you so much to have rating 2 skills. Hopefully that will change in SR5.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: UmaroVI on <01-09-13/0858:45>

Yeah, Muscle Toner and Muscle Replacement don't stack; I would drop the Muscle Toner for Attention Coprocessor.

High Pain Tolerance and Photographic Memory are both low-bang high-buck qualities. You are really better off with just having more skills/augments. High Pain Tolerance is just absurdly overpriced for what it does; there are augmentations that do it better and cheaper if you really want that. Photographic Memory might sound useful for a PI and in the 19th century it might be, but in 2073 your pants can store data. Just get some goggles/glasses/contacts/whatever and record everything. Actually, you really should get those anyways; it's cheap and gives you more vision modes/bonuses which are important to you.

I would suggest the following tweaks:

Lose High Pain Tolerance and Photographic Memory (+25 bp)
Lose Dodge (+20 bp)
+1 Perception (-4 bp)
+2 Athletics (-20 bp)
+1 Unarmed (-4 bp)
+1 Longarms (-4 bp)
+1 Reaction (-10 bp)
+15000ny (-3 bp)

Lose Muscle Toner 2 (+16000ny)
Add Attention Coprocessor 3 (-9000ny)
Add 2 Reflex Recorders of your choice for your favoritest skills ) (-20000ny)
Spend the last 2000 nuyen getting some goggles/glasses/contacts/earbuds.

A note on the dropping Dodge: Dodge lets you use Full Defense, and adds to your defense against melee attacks. Unarmed lets you add your defense against melee attacks, and Gymnastics lets you Full Defense, so if you have Unarmed and Gymnastics you don't need Dodge. Also, you can later on cheaply boost Athletics with Synthacardium.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Whiskeyjack on <01-09-13/1032:04>

Quote from: Solodice on <01-09-13/0030:55>

(not in the politest way either)

Wat


Also: Allergy: Diamonds is basically a weird way of saying Allergy: Carbon, unless the specific molecular organization would be relevant to such an allergy, which, I don't even know if that's a thing. I probably would veto it as GM, in any case.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: emsquared on <01-09-13/1130:21>

IMO, Ambidexterity is inadvisable unless you are making a primary combatant dedicated to dual-wielding. Also, I think you're wasting points on First Impression unless you plan on picking up a lot more social skills... You've bought High Pain Tolerance for 15 BP, that's 75K, you could get level 3 Damage Compensators (which do the exact same thing) for 45K and  0.3 ESS...

 If I were your GM, I'd take one look at your Neg Qualities, instantly see that you're blatantly just trying to get free BP (with the exception of Alcohol addiction), laugh and hand you back your char-sheet and tell you to pick Neg Qualities that are reasonable and add to the flavor of your Character, YGMMV (I like that, Umaro, sorry I'm stealing it!!). Either that or I'd make sure at least one of those stupid allergies and deepweed addiction came up every session - more than would normally be warranted by their BP value to compensate for your cheezyness.

Take a careful look at what you are trying to accomplish with your contacts. Having a blogger contact to me is pointless unless they're read nation-wide, if not world, yours has maybe 50 daily readers? Bartenders have very local information, assuming that's your main reason for taking the contact (not cheap drinks ;P), why not take an Info-broker contact or a reporter or something? What is the photographer going to do for you?

You've already been given good advice regarding your stats, skill-set, and gear/ware so I won't say anything regarding all that.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Novocrane on <01-09-13/1433:48>

Quote

unless the specific molecular organization would be relevant to such an allergy, which, I don't even know if that's a thing

Could be psychosomatic. I'd agree on the neg q's looking like a grab for BPs - but not that "alcohol" is much better.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Whiskeyjack on <01-09-13/1534:43>

Quote from: Novocrane on <01-09-13/1433:48>

Quote

unless the specific molecular organization would be relevant to such an allergy, which, I don't even know if that's a thing

Could be psychosomatic. I'd agree on the neg q's looking like a grab for BPs - but not that "alcohol" is much better.

Psychosomatic, sure. And while I think most people just try to grab Neg Qualities for the BPs, you can also use them for GM plot hooks. Addiction and allergies to precious substances only go so far on that front IMO, and how likely are you to actually touch a real diamond as a shadowrunner in the 2070s?

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Solodice on <01-09-13/1641:08>

Okay dokey... changed the Neg Qualities (since you all though i was just copping out). I choose these:

Dependent (Demanding): Winters cares and loves his mother greatly but she is highly demanding do to old age and pokes her noise into his work a lot.
Mysterious Implant: I guess for the GM to have fun with...

Positive Qualities:

Hawk Eye: Fits with Winters being a PI and having a keen eye (I don't care if it sucks)
School of Hard Knocks: Winters knows the streets and there citizens habits pretty well
Fame (Local): Winters is known around Renton and sometimes it gets in the way of his work.
Common Sense: I think that's self explanatory.

Also I used the extra BP to boost up the contacts. Changed my photographer to a Info Broker and added in a Fixer named Jackie Battle.

Spent a good amount of money just adding crap to the commlink (armor, biometric lock, agent, response upgrade).

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Novocrane on <01-09-13/1725:56>

Quote

how likely are you to actually touch a real diamond as a shadowrunner in the 2070s?

Dikote.

Title: Re: Private Investigator
Post by: Whiskeyjack on <01-09-13/1931:35>

Quote from: Novocrane on <01-09-13/1725:56>

Quote

how likely are you to actually touch a real diamond as a shadowrunner in the 2070s?

Dikote.

Heh.