[Arkayne]

Hey there,

Long-time player, first-time poster. 

I'm starting up a new 5e SR game.  Most of the players are sticking with vanilla Metahuman races, but one player wanted to try a weird concept: he wants to play an uplifted dog with implants to be a decker (or as he puts it, a "Labradecker"). I rolled my eyes, but decided to see if we could make it work.

He originally took the Shifter Meta from Run Faster and said that he just never shifts out of dog form. Seems kinda clunky, and he'd be spending a lot of Karma to get abilities that don't quite fit with the concept.

So here's the design challenge: how would you put together a Race Package for an Uplifted Dog?

[adzling]

That's odd, we had an escaped uplifted Dog NPC act as the parties part-time decker (handwaved by the GM) until we finally got around to learning the matrix rules and someone wanted to play a technomancer.

[DigitalZombie]

Hhm well, there are several different roads that would lead to the "uplifted dog" goal. Listed in no particular order.

Loup-garou infected, more like the wolfman, and probably neither viable nor close enough to the concept.
Changeling with fur, fangs, tail etc. also too far away from the concept I recon
Mystic adept/hermetic mage with the shapechange spell and some nasty negative quality like extreme phobia common "own metahuman form" 
E-mongrel technocritter. Run faster from 4thed had "technomancer" animals. No rules for these as player characters though.
CFD infected labrador. The CFD nano-virus can also infect normal critters with an AI mind. Again this needs heavy houserules to work.
Shapeshifter canine- most likely your closest bet, without going to much into houserule territory with the E-mongrel or CFD labrador.

sum2ten
C (2) canine shapeshifter
E(0) talent
B(3) resources
B(3) skills
C (2) attributes

The dog would need to use some of its specil attribute points to increase its magic score, if its gonna get some augmentations.
the labradecker could easily take some negative quality limiting its ability to go into metahuman form. And it would most likely take some other qualities representing its CRAZY background history.

Are you looking for valid builds? or are you looking into houserule territory? ie technocritters and CFD infected dogs as player races?

[falar]

Adept Hacker is a totally legit hacker. Do the Shapeshifter Canine and have it rock out mad adept powahz to get Increased Reflexes III, Improved Ability III on Hacking, CyberCombat, Computer, etc.

[Arkayne]

Are you looking for valid builds? or are you looking into houserule territory? ie technocritters and CFD infected dogs as player races?

First thought was to approximate with existing rules. The current thought was to use shapeshifter canine and make up a negative quality so he couldn't shift to human form, then add in some augments so he can do tap into the matrix and control a gun drone. So I think we're thinking along the same lines.

Second thought was to come up with house rules for science-cased uplifted animals. Seems like something the megacorps might be attempting as a branch of biotechnology (and it's a recurring cyberpunk genre theme).

Thanks for the ideas so far!

[odd]

Could the canine shapeshifter just use trodes so it doesn't have to lower it's magic via implants/datajack?

[falar]

Could the canine shapeshifter just use trodes so it doesn't have to lower it's magic via implants/datajack?

Totes. That's pretty key to the Adept Hacker version.

[Whiskeyjack]

Losing 1 point of MAG is totally worth it for a hacker adept to get a datajack, antenna, and retinal smartlink.

[falar]

Losing 1 point of MAG is totally worth it for a hacker adept to get a datajack, antenna, and retinal smartlink.

Also true. But also remember Cerebral Booster and Cerebellum Booster too! 0.2 Essence for a point of Logic or Intuition? That's pretty swank.