[All4BigGuns]

Hey it just hit me... am I underskilled? Like my die pools?

What's your highest pool within your main area of expertise?

I think a good rule of thumb is to have 15 to 16 in your main area (if possible as some areas are harder to get higher pools than others).

[Raiderjoseph]

My max is 14

[All4BigGuns]

My max is 14

Don't know what your specialty is, but if you're a melee-focused Adept (I assume Adept), trying to finagle a Force 2 Weapon Focus would help out. Remember though, that 15 to 16 is just what I prefer, but with how glacial advancement is, I want to be as good as I can be at the start.

[BrickyardBabe]

Remember that a professional soldier, for example, has a 10-12 dice pool in their high skills.

Frankly, if you're happy with your build, trust Adamu not to hose you. By the time you're more than paired off, you'll be able to advance to cover any holes you have.  And remember that advancement in this game is a hell of a lot faster in this game than it is in most campaigns.

[pistolgrip]

I agree with BB. You should be able to build something far more effective than the sample PCs in the core book, but don't feel like you *have* to min/max. A character with strong flavor will ultimately be more fun to play than a one-trick pony, no matter how rad you are at swinging a monowhip. Rocking a bunch of 12s is fine in my book. But putting a 15 in your niche, what makes you, you, well that's cool too.

[Beta]

Some things do have lots of ways of adding bonus dice easily, and depend on popular attributes that are easy to mod (i.e. there are number of ways to boost agility, and the firearms can benefit from smart gun links and reflex recorders).  Other things do not have as many options for adding dice, or use attributes that are not used for so many other things, so are harder to raise.

Personally my biggest problem is always the 'with this background, the character should be good at A, B, C, ......, J, K"  while the avilable skill points will reach only to about D or E or something.  I'm even dabbling with skills of A and hitting such a shortfall.  What farmboy doesn't know something about how to handle animals or repair equipment?  Having spent time in the army he should have at least rudimentary survival and first aid skills.  None of which are really needed for his Shadowrunning role, however (although any of them could be useful occasionally).

One solution to taking too many skills is to not be very good at them, but that doesn't work out well generally.  Finding that balance between focus and breadth is something I always struggle with.

[Raiderjoseph]

Well I admit I do feel better about it now. I just worry because... I really like my characters.

[BrickyardBabe]

Beta makes an excellent point. A swords driven adept can cinceivably hit 30 dice if optimized to hell and gone at chargen, but an intuition driven character is looking at maybe sixteen dice for the same amount of optimization. But a normal mortal is lucky to break ten. Dont compare yourself to hyperoptimized runners. Compare yourself to your opponents. If you break up slave trading rings and kill dealers that peddle to kids, look at their 8-11 dice pool and know that you have a 25-45% statistical advantage. Its okay not to be a one trick pony.

[DireRadiant]

Updates
Dire Radiant - Have stats, have history, have primary contacts, but I don't think I have bonus contacts. Have a spot on OP, but nothing in it yet....

Got most of my stuff written out and posted on OP.  Got one more contact, and I may look over the shared contacts and consider switching one to get a shared contact.

[DireRadiant]

Hey it just hit me... am I underskilled? Like my die pools?

Story > Strategy > Tactics>Dice pools

Knowing when and why to use your dice pool is far better than a few extra dice.

[ProfGast]

So I finished up my base character sheet.  I should just have the 40 karma freebie contacts to work through now(approximately 8 contacts to pick up I think, I'll have to compare with other characters a bit), any feedback would be appreciated.
Sam Chat
Name: Lucius “Lucky” Chang; Lucky Cheung; 張光明
Aliases: Lucas Cho, 37, Chushi, ceoifonglou (both mean chef/cook in Mandarin/Cantonese respectively)
Gender: M
Age: 28
Metatype: Human
Current Residence: Seattle Downtown (International District)
Description:
Skin: Asian, fair.
Hair: Black
Eyes: Dark Brown
Freckles: No
Height: 6’2”; 188 cm
Weight: 200 lbs; 91 kg
Sam is a tall, well-built Chinese immigrant who lives in the Seattle International District and runs a surprisingly successful hole-in-the-wall restaurant. At a glance, apart from his uncommonly tall build for his ethnicity, Sam seems fairly normal cook, with a calm, almost lazy demeanor and a slow and slightly sarcastic way of speaking.  He tends to play up the fact that he is an immigrant in the way he talks, despite the fact that he actually speaks almost perfect English.  His laid-back attitude and way of speaking however hide a burning anger and the reason he moved to Seattle a year ago: the murderer of his sister is a mid-level member of the Shotozumi-rengo.  And one way or another, Sam intends to see him pay.


Background: Originally hailing from what was the Hebei area of China, Sam’s family relocated to the Free Enterprise Zone of Hong Kong when he was 13 in order to escape the political conflicts originating in and around the Beijing area.  Already inducted into Martial Arts, Sam’s talents led him to be mixed up with a fairly tough crowd, and he grew to adulthood running with a street gang.  Though not formally part of the Triads, the local toughs were a recruiting ground for the Triad societies and “Lucky” and his friends spent a lot of time as deniable assets for the syndicates in their turf wars and conflicts.  During this time was when Sam also discovered his other marketable talent: cooking.  After a number of quite successful years of involvement in the Hong Kong shadows, Sam unfortunately ended up on the raw end of a war between the Triads and the Yakuza, a blunder which ended with both his mother and his younger sister becoming casualties of a Yak retaliation strike. A year of working to make the Yaks pay in Hong Kong quenched most of the flames of rage that grew from that experience and he had almost stepped out of the shadows to pursue a more legitimate career path when he learned the ultimate perpetrator for the atrocity had escaped justice and relocated to the city of Seattle. Burning a number of favors, Sam followed his quarry to the Emerald city and spent he last year or so biding his time waiting for the moment to bury the hatchet.
Karma Usage:
-12 Adrenaline Surge
-08 Revels in Murder
-04 Inspired (Artisan)
+07 Vendetta
+03 Biased (Yakuza)
+10 Day Job (20 hr/week)
-07 Martial Arts: Wushu (Karate), Counterattack
-05 Maneuver: Kick
-05 Maneuver: Sweep
-04 Contacts
Total Remaining:00
Priorities
A-Attributes (24)
B-Skills (36/5)
C-Resources (¥140,000)
D-Metatype (Human(3))
E-Magic (Mundane)
Attributes
BOD 3
AGI 5 (7)
REA 4 (6)
STR 6 (
WIL 3
LOG 3
INT 5
CHA 3
EDG 5
Ess 1.15
Qualities
Adrenaline Surge
Revels in Murder
Inspired
Day Job (2)
Prejudiced (Biased, Yakuza)
Vendetta
Active Skills

Name	Rank	Pool
†Running†	3	11
†Swimming†	3	11
†Gymnastics†	3	10
†Survival†	1	4
†Tracking†	1	6
†Navigation†	1	6
†Pistols†	1	8
†Automatics†	1	8
†Longarms†	1	8
Unarmed(Wushu)	6	13( 15 )
Throwing(Edged)	4*	11( 13 )
Perception	5	10
Etiquette(Corp)	3*	6( 8 )
Sneaking	4	11
Pilot(G)	1	7
Intimidate(phys)	2*	5(7)
Computer	1	6
Artisan(Cook)	3*	10(12)
Palming(Leger.)	1*	8(10)

Knowledge Skills and Languages
Mandarin: N
English: 5
Cantonese: 3
Interest: Fighting Styles 1 (Traditional Martial Arts)
Interest: Cooking 1
Street: Syndicates 1
Street: Street Gangs 1 (Asian Style Gangs)
Street: Area, Seattle 1
Street: Area, Hong Kong 1
Personal Contacts
Janice Li (Connection 1, Loyalty 6) Female, Human, Student
Janice is a UW School of Business graduate student, with an undergraduate degree in computer engineering, as well as a part-time wait staff at Sam’s restaurant.  Janice actually knows Sam by his given name and tends to refer to him as “Luke” both in public and private.  While she is distinctly NOT part of the shadows, she is quite close to Sam and  has a fair amount of academic knowledge and is quite up to date with current events.  They met shortly after Sam moved to Seattle, when her choice of weekend entertainment unfortunately ran her afoul of a group of Yak youngbloods near the International District.  Sam happened across the scene while she was being accosted and as he was never one to pass up a chance to beat some Yakuza senseless, she managed to avoid becoming a crime statistic for KE to keep track of.
A brief, but intense, period of infatuation on Janice’s part followed, but she actually managed to break through the taciturn cook’s defenses.  While not currently actively involved with each other, the two are more than just friends.  Janice knows that Sam is more than he appears, and is involved in some pretty gray areas, but their friendship, her sense of obligation, and the excitement of riding on the edge of the otherwise normal world she lives in means she’s willing to lend Sam a hand when he needs it.

Kenneth Leung (Connection 4, Loyalty 2) Male Elven Information Broker.  Awakened
On the surface, Ken is the owner of a traditional Chinese medicine shop.  In reality, he’s a good information broker with connections ranging to the Yakuza who control the international district, to the Seoulpa Rings, the Triads and even into Knight Errant.  A minorly talented Alchemist, Ken has managed to ride the very fine line of neutrality between all of his contacts thus far, and was an important part in getting Sam situated where he is now.  He’s the contact that Sam has known the longest in the Seattle Shadows and is usually the primary sounding board for Sam’s other dealings.
Gear
SIN R4 Lucas Cho
License R4-Vehicle License
Commlink - Hermes Ikon (DR5)
R3 Medkit
1 Month Commercial lifestyle
Chinese Opera, Zhang Fei Stylized Ballistic Mask
-Gas Mask
-Low Light
-Flare Compensation
Changshan style Lined Coat
Armor Jacket
-Nonconductivity 3
Throwing Knives 20x
Earbuds R2
-Audio Enhancement 2
Cooking Kit
Augmentation
Cyberware
Muscle Replacement R2
Reaction Enhancer R2 (used)
Bilateral Coordination Processor
Bioware
Boosted Reflexes
Bone Density Augmentation R3
Vehicles&Drones
Yamaha Rapier (Suzuki Mirage) (5/3 6 3 5 6 1 2 1)
-Morphing License Plate
-Spoof Chip
-Antitheft R2
-Manual Control Override
-Gridlink Override

Remaining Resource: ¥100
[/spoiler]

[Aria]

Aria, mind putting up an editable placeholder for me on the OP site?  I don't really want to mess up and add a character incorrectly and have to go through the trouble of deleting it.  I'll also see if I can't format a portion of charsheet fo rit.

Up...you should be able to edit it!

https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/characters/tc-lucius-lucky-chang

[adamu]

Was in one of the earliest ones of this Persistent, and I declined joining that page even then. I was assuming that it still wasn't mandatory.

As to background, the outline of highlights I put is about all I can really do anymore. Too many times in the past when I could do big stories for that, it ended up completely a waste of time, so I stopped bothering, and now, at this point I've completely lost the ability to really do it.

Dude, I know from experience you are a great player, but I feel like you need to throw me a bone here.

No DS, no OP, and no fleshed out history?

DS is not a big deal at all.

But OP is going to be key administratively, and personal histories (and contacts) are the entire point of this campaign.

I am hoping you can meet me halfway by doing one or the other.
If you can only do OP, then please understand the storyline will probably focus a lot less on your character.
If you can only do a history, then could you please compile all elements of your character submission into a single spot and let me know where that is?

Thanks!

[Aria]

For bonus karma for submitting contacts on OP (and to make sharing them easier) please put them here: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/wikis/contacts with the format based on the entry for Silk. Each entry here counts as 1 IC post for rewards so some depth is appreciated! Thanks!

[Raiderjoseph]

I posted two contacts. Do I get the karma? Im posting another 2 later.