[tomcat912]

Hey all.

I'm new to this game and I was playing around with the 5th edition chummer and I came up with the idea for a doctor/chemist that branched out into explosives when he became a runner. I've been trying to make this work but I've had little success due to my inexperience with this character generator.

Would love some advice/improvements on how to get this working and how it could be brought into the game.

[gradivus]

First of all, Chummer has some glitches that you are going to miss if you aren't experienced with making your character by hand.

For example in priority if you pick D for Magic and go with Adept you have 2 MR out of Max 6.
Let's say you add no special points.
Come Resources step you buy between 2 and 3 ess in 'ware> drop to 0 MR out of 3.
During Karma you raise MR to 3 out of 3- cost is 30 Karma.
Currently, Chummer gives you a much different karma number.
You can compensate for the discrepancy- but only if you know it exists.

So, in short, do your first few characters by hand till you got the system down that way if there is a discrepancy in Chummer you can catch it.

[Hobbes]

Logic based skills like Medicine, Chemistry and Demolitions are best as secondary skills added on to a Decker or Herimetic mage who already have a high logic.

If you're not interested in Decking or Magic you're going to want to define what it is you do during a run.  It's not terribly difficult to make a Samurai or Adept character that frees up a couple points of Logic and grabs a couple skills. 

http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21188.0

has several examples of moderate to high logic runners that could be used as a starting point.  The gear is a bit out of date and you'll have to juggle the secondary skills around to what it is you're interested in, but the basic priorities and stat allocation are about what you're after.

[ZeldaBravo]

Currently, Chummer gives you a much different karma number.

It seems that you need to manually upgrade it if you still use v5.177.
https://github.com/chummer5a/chummer5a/releases/latest

[Whiskeyjack]

What do you expect your job is going to be on a typical run? How will you do legwork? What will you do in a firefight?

Demolitions are useful and so is nononmagical healing but you have to have skills to consistently hang your hat on. A guy I played with had a doctor and while I think he found the roleplay aspect fun ultimately he felt like he was doing so little during runs that he retired the character, and that's hardly the first time I've heard of that happening with this kind of character.

[gradivus]

Currently, Chummer gives you a much different karma number.

It seems that you need to manually upgrade it if you still use v5.177.
https://github.com/chummer5a/chummer5a/releases/latest

I am using 5.178
and if you lose MR due to ware and then buy with Karma it still does not calculate the right karma cost under the priority/sum-to-ten...
don't know if it's a problem with the karmagen as I haven't used 5.178 to make a magic character that has lost magic due to ware

[ZeldaBravo]

Would love some advice/improvements on how to get this working and how it could be brought into the game.

How to make it work: Get even more specialities! Why not also be a rigger? Or maybe a magician?

I am using 5.178
and if you lose MR due to ware and then buy with Karma it still does not calculate the right karma cost under the priority/sum-to-ten...
don't know if it's a problem with the karmagen as I haven't used 5.178 to make a magic character that has lost magic due to ware

That's weird, I thought they fixed that AGAIN.

[Jack_Spade]

Ok, you want to be a demo man. Here is what you need (to know):

You want a Logic build. Chemistry and Demolitions both depend on it.

High LOG means you have some Knowledge Skills to spare. Get something like Civil Engineering or Architecture so you know what to explode and what to leave alone.
High LOG means you are well suited to be a Rigger - which is fortunate since having drones take care of the charges is imminently smart and conductive for a long life as a demolitions expert in training.

From an inplay perspective you should be aware that you are a very bad person. Explosives have almost always the potential to go horrible wrong and do a lot of collateral damage - even if you don't hurt people you'll leave quite a lot of structural damage and you'll be rightfully labeled as a terrorist.
So you probably should use explosives sparingly if you don't want to end up with a high notoriety.
Likewise explosives are a great way to ensure a fast exit (another thing that screams rigger) but are almost never a good way to enter unless it is nothing more than a snatch and grab job.

[gradivus]

Here's an example LOG Based Magician that does First aid/demolitions/chemestry
Not fully fleshed out but enough.
Can take up to 25 points Neg Qualities to receive Karma

Meta   E   Human(1)            
Attributes   B    20            
Magic   B   Magician MR4 2*R4 Magic Skills            
Skills    C   28/2            
Resources   C   140000            
                  
BOD   3               
AGI   2               
REA   3               
STR   2               
WIL   4               
LOG   6(9)               
INT   5               
CHA   3               
MR   5               
                   
Qualities                  
Hermatic Tradition                  
Transhuman                  
Allergy-Common,Mild(Seafood)                  
Restricted Gear (Cerebral Boster)                  
Mentor Spirit-Bear                  
   DP +2 for tests to resist damage (not including Drain)               
   DP +2  for health spells, preparations, and health spell rituals               
                   
Augmentation                  
Cerebral Booster [3] Used                  
Platelet Factories Used                  
                  
Skills                  
Arcana 1                  
Spellcasting|<pick spell category spec.> 6|+2                  
Counterspelling|Combat Spells 6|+2                  
Summoning|<pick spirit type> 6|+2                  
First Aid|Gunshot Wounds  6|+2                  
Chemistry|Biochemestry 1|+2                  
Demolitions 6                  
<pick>SG 2                  
                  
Spellls                  
7 Spells                  
                  
Knowledge Skills                  
22 Skill Points                  
                  
Contacts                  
9 Contact Points                  
                  
Gear                  
56375 nuyen left for gear

Instead of Frirst Aid you could put those elsewhere
and get Biotech SG 2 but they way first aid works
you'll be obligated to get enough karma to raise
first aid <thus breaking the SG> to at least 4 if not 5                  

[Whiskeyjack]

Buy Arcana 1 with karmaaaaaaaa not skill pointsssssss

[Marcus]

OK doc + chemistry is cool, explosive are tricky.
So you really need a Medkit, a gun with chem rounds, loaded with DMSO+your favorite contact toxin(s). You should review the core, for cyberware, first aid, slap patches, and take a long look at the addiction rules. Check out Chrome for more drugs and cyberware.

Now on explosives, the issue that tends to come up with explosives is they are usually weapons of ambush, or have considerable spread. Now both of those have advantages in the shadows, but also can be also be considerably limiting the piratical course of a run.

Next if you are determined to go into explosives review the breaking and entering section closely, it has the best sort of shaped stuff available.

Falar and Gemstar's threads are usually very good for drug related system issues.

Make sure if your doing explosives you have enough edge to cover glitch issues.

[FST_Gemstar]

I like a drone rigger for this concept.

Not to get too much into your background info if you don't want, but how about something like this for a concept. Before running the shadows, maybe you were a doctor/chemist who had a control rig installed to do remote/robot enhanced surgery.  Maybe the reason you starting being a shadowrunner had something to do with explosives - dealing with emergency injuries due to an explosion for example. Maybe you began to learn how to deal with explosives to use your drone control skills to remotely and safely defuse bombs. You do have to learn how to make bombs to defuse them though.

With high Logic and ranks in First Aid/Medicine and a medkit, you can do some helpful non-magical healing (leave the magical part for someone else or you make a more difficult to put together magical rigger), you can have a drone that can do some damage so you can lend your skills to a fight (it can shoot regular rounds or chemicals/toxins), and can be the go to for the big explosives.  Maybe drive if you need to as well.

Definitely read the advanced demolitions in Run and Gun (p. 171-197) for all of the skills, tests, shops/facilities, gear, and actions needed to make, place, and detonate explosives. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of rules on chemistry that I know of (are there more in Hard Targets for poisons?),  but Chrome Flesh p. 191 does have some rules for making customs drugs.

[Marcus]

That is a very interesting thought Gemstar. Back for the techno fake mage I was looking at a crop dusting drone to use to fake AoE chaos type spells using drugs. It could be very effective pairing cause you can hang out in the van, cook chemicals, use drones to deploy explosives and drugs. I think it could work very well together, it's not very Multi-attribute dependent, pretty much pure logic, and gives rigger more team utility.

[Whiskeyjack]

Rigger is a pretty good idea (I find LOG mages a little underwhelming, what with needing ware to hit the Drain stats that CHA mages get easily, and LOG being a less useful attribute generally than INT).

[gradivus]

Buy Arcana 1 with karmaaaaaaaa not skill pointsssssss

yes off course- but this character isn't fully fleshed out....

If I was actually going to play this character I'd buy 25 Karma in Negatives
use the 3 points in arcana and chemistry to get Perception 3
Buy Arcana 1 and Chemistry 1 (since it's part of the concept.)
I'd buy Biotech SG 2...yeah it's broken but if you could buy the full 4 for 15 then you should be able to buy the 3 for 15 especially since it's more for in character concept than total functionality.
If the GM says no the biotechnogy 2, Cybertechnology 2, medicine 1 for 14.
The rest I'd save to buy JOAT after the first run since this character is lacking a whole lot and he could simultaneously learn 5 skills for 5 Karma with JOAT.