[Aqukie]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the Shadowrun Game/World/Community. I have been lurking on the forum for about a month, gleaning as much information as I possibly can, and have reached a point where more direct

approach would be appreciated. This PC was the first one I started on and is the most fleshed out. Any thoughts or comments would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Name: Caoilfhinn "Coal" Little
Race: Elf
B    A       R     S     C    I     L   W   E   M   Ess    In
5   6{8} 3(4) 1(3)   7    5   1    3    3   4    5.2    8(9)

Positive Qualities:
 Adept, Ambidextrous, Low-Light Vision, The Speaker's Way

Negative Qualities:
 Dependent (Inconvenience), Prejudiced (Common, Biased)(English), Records On File (Saeder- Krupp), SINer (Standard )(Tir na nOg)

Skills:
 Groups:
  Stealth 1
 Con 4
 Dodge 1
 Etiquette 4
 Intimidation 1
 Leadership 1
 Negotiation 4
 Pistols 1
 Unarmed 1

Adept Powers:
 Facial Sculpt (2), Improved Reflexes (1), Keratin Control (1),  Kinesics (1), Melanin Control (1), Master of A 1000 Faces (1),  Linguistics (1)

Cyber/Bio
 Muscle Augmentation (2), Muscle Toner (2)

Contacts:
 "Big Smoke" (Dealer)
 Mr. Edward Hemmins (Banker)
 Captain Spaulding (Freighter Captain)
 NAN Border Patrol Officer (No Name Yet)
 NAN Casino Boss (No Name Yet)

Life Style:
 Lower Queen Ann Apartment
  Comforts: High, Entertainment: High, Necessities: High, Security: High
  Qualities: Affiliated, Living By Committee, No Privacy (Physical), Nosy Neighbors

Armor:
 Form-Fitting-Body-Suit: Nonconductivity (2), Thermal Damping (2)
 Lined Coat: Chemical Protection (2)

Weapons:
 2X Fichetti Executive Action: Concealable Holster, Hidden Gun Arm Slide, Gas Vent 2, Personalized Grip, Skinlink, Smartgun System
 Morrissey Elan: Concealable holster, Skinlink, Smartgun System
 Shock Glove

Gear:
 2X Fake License (4)(Fichetti Executive Action)
 Fake Sin (4) (Edith Montague)
 Hermes IKon (4,3,3,3): Subvocal Mic, Skinlink, Suit: Basic+, Empathy Software (3)
 Contact Lenses (3): Image Link, Smartlink, Camera (1), Skinlink iContacts
 Glasses: Camera (2), Flare Compensation, Skinlink
 Earbuds: Audio Enhancement (3), Select Sound Filter (3), Skinlink
 CMT Clip (1, 3, 1, 1)(Edith's)
 3X Stim Patch (3)
 3x Tranq Patch (3)
 3x Trauma Patch (3)
 Various amounts of Ex-Explosive, SnS and Hi-c rounds for my firearms.

Vehicles:
 Rover 2068: Morphing License Plate

[emsquared]

Consider carefully which is the more important "wing" of Initiative stats for you - REA or INT. The salient roles for a Face are that REA gives passive dodge, INT gives Perception and Judge Intentions. Do you need that 3rd point of EDG? I'll always go for 2, but anything above that and the GM better have a kind EDG-refresh policy (i.e. every session or earn it back in session via rule of cool), IMO. Also, this dabbles in gear as well as stats and skills, but if you're going with Unarmed for your melee, I wouldn't spend my valuable ESS/MAG on Muscle Augs - you can wear Shock Gloves, which are non-STR dependent damage, and half Impact armor - no STR necessary (though you might want to raise it later so you're not a wuss

Regarding Ambidextrous; you already suck with your pistols, you're gonna suck twice as much wielding them akimbo. I wouldn't recommend going the dual pistol route unless you're a primary combatant and dedicated to this path (i.e. pumping up the relevant Attributes/Skills, possibly a Martial Art, and taking specific gear to facilitate this).

You've taken 52 BP in Influence Skills, but you are worse than if you would have just spent 40 BP and taken the Group. Fix that. Since you have a melee skill, you should take Gymnastics (and drop Dodge) - it does the same thing for you as dodge but also makes you a good jumper/whatever. You should take some points in Perception - being good at all the stuff in the world doesn't do you any good if you get caught with your arse in the breeze.

Speaker's Way has pretty low Power Point density, so I'm not crazy about taking it as a Way, but at least you're taking a lot from it. Why haven't you taken Commanding Voice? That power is golden, and probably even more so for a spy.

You're missing out on some super easy Face/Social Skill points by not getting Tailored Pheromones (instead of Muscle Augs).

[All4BigGuns]

I'd say to go ahead and drop the Muscle Augmentation unless your character idea really, really needs it and go for the Tailored Pheromones. The suggestion on Influence skill group is a good one (and the points it frees up would be just enough that your Intimidation could be a 4 as well. You're not a combat-oriented character, so you could do without the Improved Reflexes in favor of Improved Ability (Con) and Improved Ability (Negotiation) and as a Face, I'd imagine Willpower being more important than Body.

[Glyph]

You might want to consider drastically reworking this character.  This is an augmented adept face without tailored pheromones or kinesics.  You have a high Agility, but stealth and combat skills of 1 - including disguise, even though you have bought a lot of powers to be able to change your appearance.  A too-low Reaction will hinder you in combat, and a low Logic can trip you up if you are trying to impersonate anyone above average or so intelligence.

[Aqukie]

Thank you all for the feedback. It is amazing how quickly one can get tunnel vision when a character idea takes hold. I’m at work at the moment and will update stats when I get home, but I wanted to ask a few questions.

1.   Keeping in mind that I do see myself as a Face/Infiltrator 1st and combats comes in 2nd or 3rd. What should the role of a Face be in combat? Assuming there is already a least one PC in a group with the primary combat role. I could move a few points back into LOG from BOD, and possibly drop Improved Reflexes?  The higher LOG would allow me to look at increasing a few of the B&E skills down the road, which I was worried about. I guess I just reacted to being knocked around when we played a few combat encounters, to work out the kinks.

2.   Is Speaker’s Way worth it? I realize, it is not the biggest bang for your buck. But I thought having a ready disguise, with a bit of effort and time, with me at all times could be worth it. Or would I be better off just dropping it and use latex disguises?

3.   The reason for ambidextrous was not to fire pistols simultaneously, but to trade off burst shots. The idea that I could lessen recoil, and have doubled the ammo in a fight.  Is this a viable option, or is there something I’m missing? Also, would it be a benefit for Palming, and Disguises. My thinking was for Palming, either hand will work. For Disguise, being able to manipulate objects to fit whoever you are trying to look like. Or am I being too paranoid and making more trouble for myself.

4.   Emsquared, A few times I have seen you suggest going with an EDG 2. Is that to free up BP at creation? I ask because I would have assumed that having more EDG when a GM doesn't have a generous refresh policy would help you. Like having an extra canteen of water in the desert. Freeing up BP is nice, and if EDG is not used often, it sure makes sense. But I don’t understand how having higher EDG will hinder a character when EDG is not refreshed on a regular basis.

[Glyph]

Looking at your questions:

1) You might want to consider dropping the combat role - you are definitely spread a bit thin now.  Being an elf, an adept, and augmented all cost.  Adept face/combat types are possible, but adding things like Speaker's Way and a bunch of disguise powers to it makes it more problematic.

2) I don't have the book with Ways in it, but I got the impression that the combat one was the only one where the discounted powers were worth it.  This is second-hand, though, so take that impression with a grain of salt.  Disguise is useful, but usually you will have time to use it, so a latex mask is almost as good.  Masters of disguise usually have a problem when they run into magical detection (unless they have masking) or biometric readers (unless they have a hacker spoofing their database).  So I am not sure it is worth it, at least having that much invested in it.

3) Under Attacker Using a Second Firearm (relevant text is on the next page, the first thing you read on page 142 of SR4.  Can't give you the page number if you use SR4A): "Uncompensated recoil modifiers applicable to one weapon also apply to another weapon."  Palming and disguise are both useful, even for non-infiltration types, for things like getting weapons past a search, or meeting the Johnson without letting him see what you really look like.

4) Edge is less useful the more slowly it is refreshed.  It is still very useful in general, but it not essential to most character concepts (unless you are making a Mr. Lucky).  So broader, less specialized builds such as yours often need to sacrifice a high Edge to have enough points in other areas.

[UmaroVI]

1. It is OK to be alright at combat. Commanding Voice and a good Leadership roll is enough to make a significant contribution to many combats.

2. There are two reasons to take ways: you want the special Way-only power, or you want to save PP. If you are an adept you nearly always want a Way, it's just a question of which one. I think your question is really more about how good those powers are and IMO the answer is not very. Master of 1000 Faces looks cool but it takes 24 hours to work, and it's a huge chunk of drain to speed it up. Masks are much faster and honestly, for a "face/infiltrator," I would be taking Invisible Way, sucking up the meh powers, and taking Kinesics and the Stealth-group booster power whose name I forget that Invisible Way gets, then using latex masks with the huge disguise check you can get.

On 3, Glyph is sorta right, but you can also put recoil compensators on both firearms. It's a totally valid way to fight...but not with Pistols. If you want to use Automatics, then you should consider this option. If you want to use Pistols, you should just use better pistols. Now that I look at it: Pistols cannot accept Gas Vent modifications. Check my sig and the Ghost for some good pistol constructions.

4. This is a question about opportunity cost. Is +1 Edge good? Yes, always. But that doesn't matter. The question is: is +1 Edge better than the other stuff I could buy with 10 bp? And the answer to that depends on how often your GM refreshes edge.

[emsquared]

1 The role of a Face in combat is, at a minimum, that they need to be able to defend themselves. Sometimes, you're gonna be deep cover - no team-mates within a mile - and it's gonna get blown. At that point, you better be able to shoot people in the face too. Face Adept/Combatant is perfectly viable, my first SR4 char had pools of 15 in both Pistols and the Influence Group skills (as well as 3 IPs), not to mention Commanding Voice and First Impression. He also had Disguise and Facial Sculpt which I loved in SR's camera happy, big-brother world, and as a Spy this would probably be even more invaluable. Infact he was quite like your PC here, except didn't go all out with the Melanin+Keratin Control, Linguistics, and 1000 Faces. He was a Social Infiltrator (no Hardware), but really more of an Assassin - get up close and personal with his guile, then blast away if needed. You shouldn't need to go so heavy into Facing that you can't also be a viable combatant (12 dice?) - which you would be if you could scrounge up some more dice for your Pistols skill.

2 You want to take advantage of a Way, if your GM allows it. Plan out where you would like your Powers to go, and simply see which one you're gonna get the most out of. I focus almost exclusively on PP savings, but Umaro's point is quite valid about the special power.

3 You're not lessening recoil that way, and if you're in such heavy combat that you need to worry about having two pistols for the instantaneous ammo capacity... well, as a non-primary combatant you should be avoiding such a situation like the plague. One pistol should do you, switching mags is easy enough that it's not gonna cost your team a battle, ever. And it is gonna cost you 5 BP. Watch any Legerdemain and you'll see them use both hands, not taking the Ambidextrous trait should not pigeonhole you into using only one hand for this skill. The Disguise angle is reaching... super-niche, but valid. Worth 5 BP? I don't think so, take the penalty if you have to shoot with it and argue to make an AGI check to use your left-hand competently enough if it's something difficult - like writing, otherwise, with stuff like eating or drinking, you should be able to just do it.

4 Precisely as Umaro's response.

[Aqukie]

Maybe I'm just being greedy, for I lot of what I'm hearing seems to boil down to pick something and do it well. In the spirit of focusing, I have dropped a lot of the combat oriented skills, powers etc. Switched from Dodge to Gymnastics.

I have also changed to The Invisible Way, which I think will both work better in terms of The Way's power and long term savings in PP cost. I have kept Melanin Control, as it only takes a combat turn to change one grade. There is some confusing language in the Melanin Control description, but I will talk to my GM and get his take in on it. I still like the idea of having some ability to change my looks in the fly. But I did drop Master of a 1000 faces, and Keratin Control.
 
 I had not realized that recoil affected each gun, although it makes RL sense for someone with my STR. So I have gone to one pistol. I haven't changed the mods on Fichetti, except to remove Gas Vent 2, but will look at alternative solutions later.

 Also dropped Muscle Augmentation, somewhat painfully, and will to pick up Tailored Pheromones, but need to scrounge up the nuyen first.

Below is an updated PC sheet, I have also included my knowledge skills. One question I have regarding language is how often do runners tend to run into people who don't speak english? (I'm sure there is a pun somewhere in there, so watch where you step.) I realize this is a hard question because each GM will do things differently. So a better way to ask this might be, is knowing different languages worth it? I have picked quite a few, either because I believe that my character would know them, or because of their ability to help me to negotiate in SR.


B    A       R     S     C    I     L   W   E   M   Ess    In
3   6{8} 3(4) 1(3)   7    5   3    3    3   4    5.6    8

Positive Qualities:
 Adept, Low-Light Vision, The Invisible Way

Negative Qualities:
 Dependent (Inconvenience), Prejudiced (Common, Biased)(English), Records On File (Saeder- Krupp), SINer (Standard )(Tir na nOg)

Skills:
 Groups:
  Influence 4
  Stealth 3
 Intimidation 3
 Gymnastics 2
 Perception 1
 Pistols 1
 Unarmed 1

Adept Powers:
 Commanding Voice (1), Facial Sculpt (2), Kinesics (3), Linguistics (1), Melanin Control (1), Unseen Hands (3)

Cyber/Bio
 Muscle Toner (2)

Contacts:
 "Big Smoke" (S-k Handaler)
 Mr. Edward Hemmins (Banker)
 Captain Spaulding (Freighter Captain)
 NAN Border Patrol Officer (No Name Yet)
 NAN Casino Boss (No Name Yet)

Life Style:
 Lower Queen Ann Apartment
  Comforts: High, Entertainment: High, Necessities: High, Security: High
  Qualities: Affiliated, Living By Committee, No Privacy (Physical), Nosy Neighbors

Armor:
 Form-Fitting-Body-Suit: Nonconductivity (2), Thermal Damping (2)

Weapons:
 Fichetti Executive Action: Concealable Holster, Hidden Gun Arm Slide, Gas Vent 2, Personalized Grip, Skinlink, Smartgun System
 Morrissey Elan: Concealable holster, Skinlink, Smartgun System
 Shock Glove

Gear:
 Fake License (4)(Fichetti Executive Action)
 Fake Sin (4) (Edith Montague)
 Hermes IKon (4,3,3,3): Subvocal Mic, Skinlink, Suit: Basic+, Empathy Software (3)
 Contact Lenses (3): Image Link, Smartlink, Camera (1), Skinlink iContacts
 Glasses: Camera (2), Flare Compensation, Skinlink
 Earbuds: Audio Enhancement (3), Select Sound Filter (3), Skinlink
 CMT Clip (1, 3, 1, 1)(Edith's)
 3X Stim Patch (3)
 3x Tranq Patch (3)
 3x Trauma Patch (3)
 Various amounts of Ex-Explosive, SnS and Hi-c rounds for my firearms.

Vehicles:
 Rover 2068: Morphing License Plate

Knowledge Skills:
 Area Knowledge: S-K Enclaves 2 (Str)
 Area Knowledge: Tir na nOg 3 (Str)
 Cards 2 (Int)
 English (N)
 German 3 (Lan)
 Inter-Corporate Politics 2 (Int)
 Japanese 3 (Lan)
 Or'zet 3 (Lan)
 Shadow Community 2 (Str)
 Sperethiel 4 (Lan)

[emsquared]

Maybe I'm just being greedy, for I lot of what I'm hearing seems to boil down to pick something and do it well.

It depends on your table and what you want out of the character. If you have enough players to cover all the basic roles, the more you can specialize and probably the more fun you'll have because you'll be able to get the job done reliably when it's your time to do your thing. The lower power your GM tends to run the table, the more you can generalize, and you'll probably have more fun because you'll be able to do more stuff in more situations. As a Face you don't have to worry about this, probably ever. A Face should always have something to do. I come from a table that is high-combat, high-power - so all my advice goes through that filter, unless I'm told the PCs conditions will be otherwise.

One question I have regarding language is how often do runners tend to run into people who don't speak english? ... is knowing different languages worth it?

For a Face, absolutely, IMO, cover the big ones at least - Or'zet, Sperethiel, Mandarin, Japanese, Sioux. Some NPCs will have prejudices against you or someone in their group for purely racial reasons, being able to speak their language can ameliorate that. Or some NPCs, especially in a social infiltration situation, may be speaking only their native language to try and keep people they hope/assume don't speak their language in the dark.

[Aqukie]

I hadn't considered Mandarin. And even with two contacts affiliated with NAN, I never thought of Sioux.

For some reason, I thought I might be missing some Karma cost for replenishing EDG. But I now get what you are saying about EDG.

[Xzylvador]

Keep in mind that when speaking other languages, you can only add as much dice from Social Skills than you got ranks in that language. So Mr C. Linton with 6 Negotiation still gets only 1 die from it if he only has basic knowledge in a language.
Specializations are nice though; it can really pay off specializing in Speak. Okay, you'll have some trouble reading/writing the language, but for most of your Face skills, that's not really an issue.
Depending on how many languages you buy, the Linguist quality quickly becomes really attractive too.

Edit/add: Oh, yeah. Drop your Dodge skill, get Gymnastics instead. You've got Unarmed to defend in melee; Gymnastics and Dodge are exactly the same for ranged defense. But Gymnastics also makes you a good dancer (every face should be able to dance!) and has plenty of other uses.

Edit/Add 2: And another voice for Commanding Voice!
It's a face adept's best (combat) skill, by far, especially with your low combat skills. "Toss those weapons.", "Give me that gun.", "Shoot your buddy", "Pick up that grenade", "Jump off the roof". "Stand still" and execute him without defense or stick a slap patch with narcoject on 'em.
Even out of combat, when you're caught, once you're no longer surrounded: "Uncuff my troll partner", "Open this door.", "Give me your keys."
Lots of seriously powerful stuff that'd give a mage a serious nosebleed but don't require much of an effort for a Face Adept, all of them single actions that'll be executed immediately. Funny thing is that even if it fails -which will usually only happen when targetting a large group (+5 bonus) with a leader- they will still be 'momentarily stunned' or however it's written, taking away an IP from lots of people at once.

[emsquared]

Edit/Add 2: And another voice for Commanding Voice!
It's a face adept's best (combat) skill, ... "Jump off the roof".

You can't make them hurt themselves, or I think someone that they wouldn't normally hurt, but they would stand there confused for the pass.

[Aqukie]

I have used Commanding Voice to tell an enemy to throw a weapon out the window. The problem then it that you can't collect weapons as easily.

[Xzylvador]

Just with "Throw away", every enemy often wastes 2 IPs, 1 to do that action and another to retrieve it, all the while being shot at.
If by then most of them aren't dead already (what the hell's the rest of your team doing?), you can just make them do it again.
Sure, at a -2 penalty, but that's more than offset by the fact that some of 'em are out of the fight -so not adding to the group's resistance dicepool anymore- and hopefully the leader's down (you really should be targetting him) and also not adding his leadership skill anymore.
An average mook will resist with so few dice, you can easily use it multiple times before there's a chance for the power to 'fizzle'.