[Crash_00]

This is my first character I've made to play in SR 4 and I was looking for some advice from people playing for a while. I've only really played SR3 so I may have made some stupid mistakes.

Wraith has been part of a Merc camp in Africa for the past three years. His service term ended and he found himself headed back to the states, left to rot in NYC. He's only been in town for three weeks and is trying to set himself up in the goodlife. His only real contact in the city is an old buddy Johnny from high school.

Wraith's job is to move in quietly and protect the specialist assets of a team. He's good at taking bullets while the specialists get the job done and in taking a more offensive role in getting out of a job gone bad. He's also skilled in some of the less subtle means of opening new routes of entry/exit and at getting information from the enemy.

Wraith was never much of one for book learning, but while on his tour of service, he was taught what to look for in Arms and Augmentations to gauge the enemy's resources and threat.

Troll (40)
Agility:      4(6)      (30)
Body:      9(10)   (40)
Reaction:           5(7)      (40)
Strength:           6      (10)
Charisma:   2      (10)
Intuition:           4      (30)
Logic:      2      (10)
Willpower:   4      (30)

Essence:   1.625
Edge:       3      (20)
Initiative:   9(11) 3 Passes
         Total:   (260)   

SKILLS
Automatics: 3 (Assault Rifles +2)   (14)      CyberTech: 2 (Combat Implants +2)
Athletics: 1                    (10)      Security Procedures: 2 (Military +2)
Intimidate: 3 (Interrogate +2)      (14)      Street Drugs: 1 (Combat Drugs +2)
Unarmed Combat: 4          (20)      Urban Brawl: 2 (Seattle +2)
Electronics: 1                    (10)      Firearm Identification: 4
Perception: 1 (Visual +2)              (      English: N
Infiltration: 6 (Urban +2)              (22)       Italian: 2 (Mob Talk +2)
Demolitions: 3                    (12)
            Total:           (372)

QUALITIES
(Positive)                    (Negative)
Perceptive (-10)      Signature (+10)
Restricted Gear (-5)      Spammed (+5)
Toughness (-10)      Records on File (+10)
Quick Healer (-10)      Poor Self Control – Vindictive (+10)

CONTACTS (6 pts)
Johnny Marcone (Loyalty:2, Connection: 4) Fixer

Low Lifestyle (Comfort: 1, Entertainment: 1, Necessity: 3, Neighborhood: 3, Security: 3) 1/month

Total: 378
22 pts. on Gear (110,000 nuyen)

CYBERWARE/BIOWARE
Datajack             / .1 Ess/ 500   Wired Reflexes 2   / 3 Ess/ 32000   
Smartlink           / .1 Ess/ 1000   Plastic Bone Lacing   / .5 Ess/5000
Image Link   / .1 Ess/ 500   Orientation System   /.2 Ess/1250
Flare Comp.   / .1 Ess/ 750   Muscle Toner 2      /.4 Ess/16000
Prot. Covers   /   -      / 100   Sleep Regulator   /.15 Ess/10000

WEAPONS
Ares Crusader w/ Sound Suppressor, Flashlight (Infrared), and Trigger Removal
[1. Smartlink   2. Melee Hardening   3. Powered Folding Stock   4. Extended Clip
 5. Electronic Firing   6. Electronic Firing]

Colt M-23 w/ Foregrip, Trigger Removed, Flashlight (Infrared), Sling, Sound Suppressor, Shock Pads
[1. Smartlink   2. Gas Vent III   3. Gas Vent III   4. Imp. Range Finder   5. Electronic Firing   
 6. Electronic Firing]

Eichiro Hatamoto II w/ Sound Suppressor

6 Clips for M-23      250 AR normal rnds    80 AR Stick and Shock rnds   40 Subsonic AR rnds
6 Clips for Crusader          300 MP normal rnds    50 MP Stick and Shock rnds   50 Subsonic MP rnds
10 Shock and Lock rnds.      2 Smoke Grenades   1 Thermal Smoke Grenades

ARMOR   
Form Fit (Full Body Suit) [Thermal Dampening: 6, Insulation:3]
SWAT Armor (Restricted Gear) [Non-Conductivity: 6, Shock Frills, Fire Resistance: 6, Chem Protection: 5]
                      [Jammer: 4 , MAD Scanner: 3]
SWAT Helmet [Ultrasound, Cyberware Scanner:6, Motion Sensor]
SSP Pieces:
Vitals Protector
Shin Guards
Forearm Guards
Arm/Leg Casings (Only wear Legs)
Armor (18/16)

GEAR
Rat. 6 Medkit      Trauma Patch      1 Rat. 6 Antidote Patch
Micro-Transciever Rat. 6 w/ Subvocal Mic.
NovaTech Airware Commlink w/ NovaTech Navi OS
Contacts (Rating 2) w/ Vision Enhancement 3 and Vision Magnification
Headphones (Rating 2) w/ Audio Enhancement 3 and Spatial Recognizer
Wireclippers      Monofilament Chainsaw   
Climbing Gear      100 Meters of Standard Rope
2 Doses of Cram

On a side note, can Trolls use ARs one handed in SR4? I know in 3rd they could but I havn't found it in the SR4 book with the little time I had glancing through it.

[eshoup1]

No pistols skill? I realize automatics covers machine pistols, but that Eichiro hatamoto II you are carrying seems like dead weight. Also, according to Arsenal Trolls take a -1 modifer when using an AR one handed. Arsenal also states that only SMG-sized weapons and smaller may be used in each hand simultaneously. So no dual wield ARs. As cool as that would be.

[eshoup1]

Also, only one contact seems really low. You never made friends with a black market weapons dealer? And who got you your restricted armor? What about a mob contact?

[Sliver]

Also, only one contact seems really low. You never made friends with a black market weapons dealer? And who got you your restricted armor? What about a mob contact?

Well technically, any character can find any weapon without the appropriate contact. A contact just makes it easier.

Personally, I don't think you need very many contacts. I usually get a dealer (or) mechanic, and an information contact.

[Crash_00]

Well the pistol is meant for blowing hinges of doors. It's more of a "Lockpick" than a weapon (hence only carrying the Shock Lock rounds.

As for the contacts, I've only been in NYC a few weeks and really hasn't gotten a chance to meet anyone yet. He knew Johnny from High School and Johnny helped him smuggle some Merc goods back into the city in exchange for a few favors down the road.
Johnny is a mob man fixer, I just didn't load his bio.

I wasn't wanting to dual wield ARs, but was thinking of picking up a Ballistic shield in the future and didn't know what the penalties for firing a AR with that would be. A -1 doesn't seem that bad though, with the penalty from the shield at -1 also I'd still be rolling a good number of dice.

On that note, I know shields can take Armor Modifications, but do they have capacity and can they take Add-ons?

[Sliver]

Well the pistol is meant for blowing hinges of doors. It's more of a "Lockpick" than a weapon (hence only carrying the Shock Lock rounds.

Well for that purpose, just get the Chisel (SR4a p335), it's used for breaking the locks on doors. It's only 20 nuyen, requires no skill, and doubles your strength for the purpose of breaking doors.

You have a strength of 6. You would be breaking down doors with a strength of 12, which makes me shit my pants

[eshoup1]

As for adding armor modifications to shields... p. 317 of SR4 states that shields can only accept chemical protection, fire resistance, and nonconductivity. And then it does not stack with other armor enhancements, only the highest rating applies. I see nothing in Arsenal that states any other modifications can be made to shields. So that may be a ask your GM area of the rules. but you could try and get your chisel installed in your shield. That would be hilarious. The shield may be able to accept an auto-picker or tool kit.

Edit: Shields can take add-ons and have a capacity equal to 1.5 x their ballistic or impact rating. I see nothing in the rules to counteract that.

[Glyph]

Do you know how close to canon your GM is going to run Manhattan?  As presented in Corporate Enclaves, it is a socially stratified company town with ubiquitous surveillance, where you need a really good fake ID just to move around, and where any vehicle or equipment you use needs to be discarded quickly so it doesn't get traced back to you.  Sneaky or not, it's hard to see an assault rifle-toting troll in full body armor functioning well in that kind of environment.

On a more general note, I would consider switching the ratings around for his automatics and infiltration skills.  Infiltration is important, but ranged combat tends to have many more potential negative modifiers, so you want a good, high dice pool to start out with.

[Crash_00]

I think he's planning on running one of the seasons of Missions. He said not to worry about the Fake SINS, that it would be taken care of in the first session, unless we needed an extremely high one.

I know next to nothing about the SR4 settings other than the background from SR3.

I'm doing a few tweaks to the character. My math was off in places from switching points around and he recommended taking specializations after Character Creation. I played a few sessions of Season two, but I used an archetype back then.

As for the shield, I was more thinking of add-ons like different sensors and maybe an Image Link or camera in the window of the shield. Does the armor rating * 1.5 tell you the armor's capacity or just how many rating points of mods (not add-ons) it can take?

As for the skills, there are six of us in the group and other than the hacker all the others are heavy hitters in combat. I felt that the Infiltration fit with the covert nature of his background than automatics did. After all, in his old line of work a good job meant they never noticed you. The Automatics is more like the Demolitions skill, a backup for if things do go wrong.

[eshoup1]

Well, a RFID tag has a capacity of 1 which is large enough to house a video/trideo camera. so you could always just slap one of those on the front of the shield. It would then link to your commlink and thus to the image link in your goggles/cybereyes. As for other sensor packages... according to pg.44 of Arsenal the 1.5 x armor rating capacity can be used to mount sensors. A listing of the capacity for various sensors in armor is on that page. Since you specifically asked... A camera has a capacity of 1, an image link with a heads-up display mounted in the shield has a capacity of 2.

The 1.5 x armor rating represents the total capacity of the armor. It can take whatever rating of add-on you want/can afford.

I hope this helps.

[Denver Doc]

Maybe I missed it but didn't look like you had a fake SIN.  I always consider that an absolute must have.  Hard to buy a bag of yums at the Stuffer Shake without one.  Additionally might invest in some street armor, something you can actually wear around a "decent" part of town without getting SWAT called on you.  A troll in security armor is always suspicious to the law and they usually shoot first in that case.  Basically what Glyph said.

Denver Doc