[Seeker]

Threw together a Mundane Face and a bit of a backstory.

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== Info ==
Street Name: Seeker
Name: Evan Crisp
Karma: 0
Street Cred: 0
Notoriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0
Human Male Age 20
Height 6'1" Weight 189lbs
Nuyen: 950

== Attributes ==
BOD: 3
AGI: 3 (5)
REA: 3
STR: 5 (7)
CHA: 4
INT: 4
LOG: 3
WIL: 3

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence:                   4.26
Initiative:                7
IP:                        1
Matrix Initiative:         4
Matrix IP:                 1
Physical Damage Track:     10
Stun Damage Track:         10

== Active Skills ==
Blades                     : 1                      Pool: 6
Climbing                   : 3                      Pool: 11
Computer                   : 1                      Pool: 4
Con                        : 4                      Pool: 10
Data Search                : 1                      Pool: 4
Disguise                   : 1                      Pool: 5
Dodge                      : 2 [Ranged Combat]      Pool: 5 (7)
Etiquette                  : 4                      Pool: 10
Flight                     : 3                      Pool: 11
Gymnastics                 : 3                      Pool: 9
Hardware                   : 1                      Pool: 4
Infiltration               : 1                      Pool: 6
Leadership                 : 4                      Pool: 10
Locksmith                  : 1                      Pool: 6
Negotiation                : 4                      Pool: 10
Palming                    : 1                      Pool: 6
Parachuting                : 1 [BASE Jumping]       Pool: 4 (6)
Perception                 : 2                      Pool: 6
Pistols                    : 3 [Semi-Automatics]    Pool: 8 (10)
Running                    : 3                      Pool: 11
Shadowing                  : 1                      Pool: 5
Software                   : 1                      Pool: 4
Survival                   : 1                      Pool: 4
Swimming                   : 3                      Pool: 11
Unarmed Combat             : 3 [Subdual Combat]     Pool: 8 (10)

== Knowledge Skills ==
Anti-Corporate Blogging Trends : 2                      Pool: 6
Chinese                    : 2                      Pool: 6
English                    : N                      Pool: 0
Japanese                   : 2                      Pool: 6
Matrix Theory              : 1                      Pool: 4
Orzet                      : 1                      Pool: 5
Running Shoe Trends        : 4                      Pool: 8
Shiawase Seattle Operations : 2                      Pool: 6
Smuggler Routes            : 1                      Pool: 5
Street Drugs               : 1                      Pool: 5
Urban Exploration          : 4 [Denver]             Pool: 8 (10)

== Contacts ==
Deng, Anti-Corp Blogger (2, 4)
Fixer (3, 1)
Neo-Tokyo Talismonger (1, 1)
Sympathy (2, 6)

== Qualities ==
Dependent (Nuisance)
Guts
Lost Loved One
SINner (Standard)

== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Commlink
   +Data Lock
   +Datajack
Cyberears Rating 2
   +Ear Recording Unit
   +Sound Link
   +Balance Augmenter
   +Select Sound Filter Rating 2
   +Damper
   +Audio Enhancement Rating 1
Image Link
Muscle Augmentation Rating 2
Muscle Toner Rating 2
Skinlink
Sleep Regulator
Synthacardium Rating 1
Tailored Pheromones Rating 2

== Armor ==
Urban Explorer Jumpsuit   6/6
   +Thermal Damping

== Weapons ==
Colt America L36
   +Concealable Holster
   DV: 4P   AP: -   RC: 0
Knife
   DV: 5P   AP: -   RC: 0
Unarmed Attack
   DV: 4S   AP: -   RC: 0

== Commlink ==
Custom Commlink (5, 5, 5, 4)
   +Custom Commlink OS
   +Encrypt Rating 5
   +Biofeedback Filter Rating 4
   +Scan Rating 5
   +Stealth Rating 4

== Gear ==
Ammo: Regular Ammo (Light Pistols) x100
Biometric Reader
Climbing Gear
Contact Lenses Rating 2 x2
   +Flare Compensation
   +Low Light
Datachip x10
Docwagon Contract: Basic
Fake License (Colt L36, Courier) Rating 4 x2
Fake SIN Rating 3
Goggles Rating 4
   +Flare Compensation
   +Low Light
   +Vision Enhancement Rating 3
   +Vision Magnification
Lockpick Set
Mapsoft (Seattle, Neo-Tokyo, Hong Kong, Denver) Rating 4 x4
Plastic Restraints x50
Psyche x3
Rappelling Gloves
Subvocal Microphone
Tag Eraser x3
Wire Clippers

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Backstory

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Timeline

2052 - Born
2057 - Escaped Arcology
2057-2062 - Neo-Tokyo
2062-2064 - Hong Kong
2064-2072 - Denver
2072 - Back in Seattle

So, here's the deal.  I don't remember getting yanked out of the arcology.  I've got a gap I could drive a hovercraft through.  So, here is what I know.  Some of this is what Welles told me, so take it as you will.

My mom was apparently a bigwig at a Shiawase Arcology, and was profitable enough to have a loose leash.  She went slumming in Seattle fairly regularly until she came back pregnant with me.  I assume Welles knew my mom from these days, but he won't tell me anything.  After coming back knocked up, she stopped leaving the arcology.  Now right around turning five things got fuzzy.  All I remember is hearing my mom talking to someone about something in Dunklehzahn's will, and then I woke up getting hauled by the waist out of Shiawase with bullets flying past my head. 

On the subject of Welles, he let me know that my mom hired him to pull an extraction on the both of us on real short notice.  So short in fact, that he had about a day to pull together a team of 'runners he had never worked with.  It was supposed to be a cakewalk, but someone glitched everything.  One of the sammy's got gakked on the inside, and the whole plan fell apart.  Welles pulled the other three back together, and finished the job... sort of.  They found me, but Mom was apparently long gone.  This is the part where I start remembering things. Scary drek to wake up to.  Welles never let me live down pissin' all over him.

Next, though, is a valuable lesson that Welles said he learned.  NEVER 'run with a team you haven't drank with.  So, my mom paid half up front for the job, and now that she wasn't there, the other half wasn't forthcoming.  They started talking about shoring up losses by seeing what some organleggers would offer up for me.  Welles put a bullet between the eyes of the first guy that put a hand on me after that conversation and, after taking a bullet to the shoulder, started running.  I've never stopped.

Now, we come to another bit about Welles.  He's paranoid.  You think he called himself "Welles" cause that was his real name?  I swear I saw him whispering sweet nothings to a paperback of '1984' one time.  But, paranoia can be a healthy thing sometimes.  He knew he had a couple of 'runners chasing him down, and Welles liquidated his assets and had us on a boat in eight hours.  The man put Boy Scouts to shame.

We found our way into Neo-Tokyo and stayed with a talismonger til she kicked us out.  Apparently it was bad for business to have the two of us hiding in the back of her store.  She treated us like strays, but she made sure we never starved.  We stayed in Neo-Tokyo for five years.  I kept running.  Climbing and swimming, when the toxin alerts were low, too. Learned some Japanese.  We stayed until right after Christmas.  Welles had been watching the Ghostwalker incident pretty closely and then, one day, he woke me up and we were running again.

A few days later I found myself in Hong Kong.  We boarded with some militant anti-Corp ork blogger.  His blog was filled with the most recent "raping of the environment/freedom/competitive business" drek.  Crazy bastard.  I still talk to Deng pretty regularly... I love the guy.  I hear he's joined up with the 9x9's.  Anyway, we spent two years inhabiting his basement.  Welles started teaching me how to shoot when I turned fourteen, and I was still running.  Started a bit of shoplifting too. Learned a little Chinese, and Deng taught me some Orzet.  I'd say mostly curse words, but that's pretty much the language.  At some point Welles thought we were in trouble again, so we started to lie low.  Then the Crash of '64 happened.  Scared me out of my mind, but Welles found another way out.  Said that if we leave while everything is down, it'd be harder to find us.

So, that brings us to Denver.  We found ourselves a coffin hotel, and Welles started 'running again.  Said he was getting some good work, and was running out of nuyen and favors.  Oh, well.  I didn't care, because there was a brothel right next door.  Can you imagine the temptation for a twelve year old?  Well, I apparently annoyed the right people often enough, because the place started giving me oddjobs.  Most of my work was going and fetching drugs for the clientele.  It's also where I met Sympathy, an elven joygirl. I got to know her, not in the biblical sense... (not yet, anyway), and we became good friends.  There was a lot more too her than met the eyes.  She's the one that taught me about the Matrix, even if nothing really useful stuck. The bouncer at the brothel started treating me like a little brother.  He showed me where to hit someone to make it hurt, but not show.  Clients don't like explaining black eyes to their wives.  The money I was making was pretty good too...  I started getting all of my warez about this time, too.  Welles bought me a few things, too.  He had Sympathy make sure my commlink didn't have any malware on it, and that everything else was shipshape too.  Apparently, Sympathy did a few datasteals with Welles; owed him a favor.  She said she'd have done it for free, and Welles waved her off saying this made them square.  Turned twenty, and Sympathy took me out to celebrate.  Shared a rather nice night, too.

Had a video message waiting the next morning.  Welles' face loaded up on AR. I listened to his voice.  It was kind of shaky.

"So... here's the deal.  Shiawase wasn't responsible for your mom's disappearance.  Don't know who it was, but it was someone else. She's still alive, I know it.  Check the attached files for access to my Malaysian Bank account, I switched it over to you yesterday.  Info is with the attached.  There is about six thousand nuyen in the account, and it'll take two thousand nuyen to the smuggler listed in the attached to get two people to Seattle tonight.  Meet him at seven.  Make damn sure you are there at seven, you hear me?  I... Well, they... found me.  And I'm not getting away this time.  You won't see me again, so... be careful.  Be careful."

As his voice choked up towards the end, I took him on his word.  Sympathy insisted on coming with me... wouldn't take no for an answer.  Old coot could put Boy Scouts to shame.

So, here I am in Seattle.  I've got enough nuyen to put food on the table for two for a couple of months. I've got nothing to go on with what happened with my mom, and Sympathy is still with me.  Fixer found me, and he's trying to find me a job.  Got Sympathy working at a modshop hacking commlinks.

Fixer says Welles told him to get in touch with me, said my name was "Seeker".

He flashes a toothy grin.

"Well, Seeks, I think you got a face I can sell."

[Seeker]

Of note:  The commlink is a vestigial leftover from when I was toying with a hacker/face.  Ignore as you will.

[baronspam]

My first suggestion is to dump dodge.  You have the athletics group, which gives you gymnastics, which you can substitute for dodge when doing a full defense.  You can pick up the ranged specialization with your first karma from play.  Maybe use it to punch up a combat skill some.

You put alot into strength.  You are pretty good at subdual combat, but no significant melee weapon skills.  And a stun baton or some shock gloves will give you non-leathal melee damage as well.  Not saying its a bad thing, but think about priorities. 

Any way you can squeeze in a level of wired reflexes?  Not very expensive, gives you a point of rection and thus another dice of defense, and most important another initiative pass.  Those extra passes go a long way toward survival.  With even one extra you can use a full defense and still have an attack left. 

This last one is really campaign subjective, talk to your GM about power levels.  But I think you you need to pick your specialty and focus a bit more.  Most of your dice pools come in the 8-10 range.  While not bad in the objective sense, its not great either.  That is certainly professional competency, but runners are generally looking for more of an edge than that.  Your character strikes me as a mid level corp human resource manager who likes outdoor sports and who has taken some self defense/security cross training.  If you are really going to be the face I would have more charisma, push the pheromones to 3, and maybe pick up a vocal range modifier. 

[Glyph]

Yeah.  There is a difference from "professional" in the cop or security guard sense, and "professional" in the runner sense - which generally means insanely capable.  A face who rolls 10 dice will be functional, most of the time, but only if he is in a group where he is the only one covering that role.  The trouble with mid-level dice pools is that unless you have a niche all to yourself, you will be constantly overshadowed by the other players.

[Charybdis]

As a basic build, I think you're losing a lot of power with so many skills at R1.

In the mid/long term, you'd be better off increasing some of your more common skills to the 3-4 level (even a couple of 5, or 1 at 6), and then spend in-game Karma to get these little R1 skills and specialisations at a later stage.

Here's why:
Example 1:
- To start the game with a skill of R4, and 5x further skills at R1 = 36 BP
- To then raise the R4 skill to R6 = (5x2) + (6x2) = 22 Karma

Example 2:
- To start the game with a skill of R6 = 24 BP
- To then get 5x additional skills at R1 = (5x4) = 20 Karma

So, you end up with the same skill ratings (1x R6, 5x R1), but Example B gives you both 10 extra BP at character creation (enough to raise an Attribute point, like Charisma from 4-5?) AND an extra 2 karma in your pocket during the game (another specialisation?)

The same math applies to Knowledge skills (start with a few at a high rating, and raise others in game), and ESPECIALLY true for Attributes.

Hope this infor helps

Cheers!

[Irian]

My first suggestion is to dump dodge.  You have the athletics group, which gives you gymnastics, which you can substitute for dodge when doing a full defense.

Honestly, why do so many people suggest that? Doesn't anyone think about roleplaying anymore? When has it become just roll-play? There's a significant difference between dodge and gymnastics, which makes it pretty strange for, let's say a soldier. Gymnastics is great if you're playing the kung fu guy, jumping and cartwheeling around - but if you're playing the Ex-Troll-Mercenary, it's nothing I would suggest. So this default "forget dodge, you've got gymnastics" is imho never a good tip.

This last one is really campaign subjective, talk to your GM about power levels.  But I think you you need to pick your specialty and focus a bit more.  Most of your dice pools come in the 8-10 range.  While not bad in the objective sense, its not great either.  That is certainly professional competency, but runners are generally looking for more of an edge than that. 

Honestly, I prefer characters that way, instead of having maximized dice-pool-monsters. And as long as everyone in the campaign agrees to this, it's perfectly ok.

In the mid/long term, you'd be better off increasing some of your more common skills to the 3-4 level (even a couple of 5, or 1 at 6), and then spend in-game Karma to get these little R1 skills and specialisations at a later stage.

Yes, who cares if the character doesn't make any sense now, you can start making him suitable for his background later. Why does everyone see their character only as a chance to be uber-powerfull? I prefer my character's stats to reflect the character's background. And more often than not, that includes some skills on 1-2. Characters are (imaginary) people and people aren't optimized. 

[baronspam]

My first suggestion is to dump dodge.  You have the athletics group, which gives you gymnastics, which you can substitute for dodge when doing a full defense.

Honestly, why do so many people suggest that? Doesn't anyone think about roleplaying anymore? When has it become just roll-play? There's a significant difference between dodge and gymnastics, which makes it pretty strange for, let's say a soldier. Gymnastics is great if you're playing the kung fu guy, jumping and cartwheeling around - but if you're playing the Ex-Troll-Mercenary, it's nothing I would suggest. So this default "forget dodge, you've got gymnastics" is imho never a good tip.

This last one is really campaign subjective, talk to your GM about power levels.  But I think you you need to pick your specialty and focus a bit more.  Most of your dice pools come in the 8-10 range.  While not bad in the objective sense, its not great either.  That is certainly professional competency, but runners are generally looking for more of an edge than that. 

Honestly, I prefer characters that way, instead of having maximized dice-pool-monsters. And as long as everyone in the campaign agrees to this, it's perfectly ok.

In the mid/long term, you'd be better off increasing some of your more common skills to the 3-4 level (even a couple of 5, or 1 at 6), and then spend in-game Karma to get these little R1 skills and specialisations at a later stage.

Yes, who cares if the character doesn't make any sense now, you can start making him suitable for his background later. Why does everyone see their character only as a chance to be uber-powerfull? I prefer my character's stats to reflect the character's background. And more often than not, that includes some skills on 1-2. Characters are (imaginary) people and people aren't optimized.

On the dodge bit-  because mechanically its a waste of points and you never have enough points on a 400 bp character to do everything you want anyway.  I have never taken gymnastic dodge to mean you have to strap on some tights and do a tumbling run, but it does mean that with your overall athleticism you are very skilled at moving your body around, which is basically what dodge is.  Defending against ranged combat or doing a full defense against melee there is no mechanical advantage to have dodge over gymnastics, and gymnastics is easier to boost because you can get a synthacardium and get bonuses to your pool.  When not on full defense in melee the character can use a melee skill, which this character has.  Dodge is dead points in this case.

On power level and dice pool averages.  I did say talk to the GM about what he has in mind.  What I was gently suggesting, however, is that at alot of tables this guy really wouldn't cut it.  Maybe its an RP heavy group, thats fine.  But if you get to play and you have a combat specialist that has dice pools in the mid teens and the troll  tank has 25 dice to resist damage and the hacker has 14 dice on his data search vs. this guy's six, its going to be easy to feel outclassed.  If everyone else is built in the same way its fine, but I think at the average table this character comes out underpowered.  With one initiative pass and the current combat skills he isn't much better in a fight than a beat cop, and his non-combat specialty (social skills) are honestly not better than mid range.   

 At minimum he should have level 3 pheromones instead of level 2, probably the vocal range enhancer as well, and a higher charisma than 4 if he is going to be primarily a face.  Those things will easily fit on a 400 bp character.  Even if we stick with the skill group at 4 and don't break it up you could have 5 chr+4 skill+3 Pheromones+1 Vocal Ranger enhancer=13 dice.  The first impression quality gives and extra +2 dice the first time you meet someone, very useful for conning your way past the gate guard or negotiating the fee in the initial meet with Mr. Johnson.  An elf metatype or biting the bullet for a 6 charisma gets you even more.  Now you are clearly, clearly better than the corp manager I mentioned in my first post, which is where most runners aim to be.

[Irian]

On the dodge bit-  because mechanically its a waste of points and you never have enough points on a 400 bp character to do everything you want anyway. 

Then the problem is "what you want". If you want to make the big bag samurai who already knows everything, then yes, that will be difficult, but why not simply adjust the "I want" part to something that's doable without making the character so extremely strange.

I have never taken gymnastic dodge to mean you have to strap on some tights and do a tumbling run, but it does mean that with your overall athleticism you are very skilled at moving your body around, which is basically what dodge is.

The rules say otherwise, read the part about gymnastics dodge.

Defending against ranged combat or doing a full defense against melee there is no mechanical advantage to have dodge over gymnastics, and gymnastics is easier to boost because you can get a synthacardium and get bonuses to your pool.  When not on full defense in melee the character can use a melee skill, which this character has.  Dodge is dead points in this case.

So what? My goal is to create a character and not an optimized pool-monster. If my character was a soldier, I would take dodge. If he was a kung fu movie action star, then I would consider gymnastics. All you seem to think about is how to maximize your pool. For me, the character's background comes first.

My problem with this type of answers is, that they MAKE people think, that this is the way the game needs to be. If people in the forums would start to suggest lower-powered but more realistic characters, than I'm pretty sure that much more groups would be lower-powered. Telling the people that they need astronomically high stats is kind of a self-fullfilling prophecy.

[baronspam]

On the dodge bit-  because mechanically its a waste of points and you never have enough points on a 400 bp character to do everything you want anyway. 

Then the problem is "what you want". If you want to make the big bag samurai who already knows everything, then yes, that will be difficult, but why not simply adjust the "I want" part to something that's doable without making the character so extremely strange.

I have never taken gymnastic dodge to mean you have to strap on some tights and do a tumbling run, but it does mean that with your overall athleticism you are very skilled at moving your body around, which is basically what dodge is.

The rules say otherwise, read the part about gymnastics dodge.

Defending against ranged combat or doing a full defense against melee there is no mechanical advantage to have dodge over gymnastics, and gymnastics is easier to boost because you can get a synthacardium and get bonuses to your pool.  When not on full defense in melee the character can use a melee skill, which this character has.  Dodge is dead points in this case.

So what? My goal is to create a character and not an optimized pool-monster. If my character was a soldier, I would take dodge. If he was a kung fu movie action star, then I would consider gymnastics. All you seem to think about is how to maximize your pool. For me, the character's background comes first.

My problem with this type of answers is, that they MAKE people think, that this is the way the game needs to be. If people in the forums would start to suggest lower-powered but more realistic characters, than I'm pretty sure that much more groups would be lower-powered. Telling the people that they need astronomically high stats is kind of a self-fullfilling prophecy.

Hey Omae, the OP asked for a critique, which means he was basically interested in mechanical pointers about the game.  Your main feedback so far has been that characters shouldn't be optimized.  Not sure you are helping here.  The OP is free to form his own opinions and do what he wants in the context of what works with his group.  He is a big boy.  If he was 100% satisfied with his character he wouldn't have asked for advice.  You don't need to save him from us.

[Irian]

I don't know if he's a big boy, could be a midget, too. Anyway, I didn't intend to "warn" anyone, just post something about a trend I noticed here. Nobody has to agree with it, of course.

[Seeker]

The info is good.  I do tend to like my characters to make sense, more than be a dice pool monster.  Our GM has honestly not let anything through about what kind of game this is going to be, though we expect the requisite "What kind of game do you WANT it to be?" when we get around to asking.

The only reason I'm really looking for help is that with so few people in the group as of now, it seems we have to all cover more than one thing, and 400bp doesn't really lend itself to the Jack-of-All-Trades set.

[Charybdis]

The only reason I'm really looking for help is that with so few people in the group as of now, it seems we have to all cover more than one thing, and 400bp doesn't really lend itself to the Jack-of-All-Trades set.

This is an excellent point.

It's much easier to build a single 400BP-PC specialist knowing that other members of your crew can cover the gaps.

But if you need a small group if runners each with a primary and secondary (or even tertiary) skill-sets, then optimisation goes very much out the window.

Note: You don't need to have bunches of skills at 1 to represent having some mega-basic knowledge of them. That is what defaulting to attributes is for. Everyone who has finished high-school would have a BUNCH of knowledge skills at R1 (Math, Language, History, Science, Geography etc). How often do you see those 5+ skills mentioned in a character build?

[baronspam]

The only reason I'm really looking for help is that with so few people in the group as of now, it seems we have to all cover more than one thing, and 400bp doesn't really lend itself to the Jack-of-All-Trades set.

True.  Shadowrun in general doesn't support jack of all trades characters well.  The mechanics really encourage specialization.  Its easier to build someone who does one or two things very well than somone who does many things moderately well.  Most people find that, purely from a numbers/mechanics point of view, that the best approach is to pick a fairly narrow focus and make sure you are excellent in that area, and then pick a couple of minor things, possibly individual skills(first aid, demolitions, pilot), or possibly another narrow focus, and get a moderate set of dice pools there.  If you try to do everything- fight a little bit, have some social skills, hack a little bit, be able to sneak around, you end up not very good at all of it.

I would say a good approach might be to make yourself a little better at your social skills, and then pick one or two secondary skillsets to offer at a moderate level.  Don't spread your stats or skills to thin.  You don't want to be an ultra-specalist and turn into a one trick pony, but spreading yourself to thin doesn't work either.  If everyone in the group has a primary focus and then one or two other things they can offer you will do fine.  A good Gm understands not every group does everything, and your fixer (the gm) won't offer you straight up combat missions if you guys are on the low side for physical combat, or magic heavy ops if you lack a mage, etc.

But make sure you have a hacker.  A group without a matrix specialist is really, really at a disadvantage, so much so that I think the GM should think about an NPC if no one has that covered.

[Glyph]

I have made some decent semi-generalists, but I think one of the keys to doing that effectively (if you want effectiveness, rather than someone more new to the shadows), is going with the grain of the system.  It is a game where magical characters wield strange powers and are alternately idolized and envied by mundanes.  Where augmentations can make you superhuman, at the cost of selling bits and pieces of yourself.  In other words, it is a game with strong transhumanist themes.  This is reflected in the fact that both magic and augmentation give characters boosts to their abilities that are extremely effective and relatively cheap.

So if you want an effective generalist who has higher dice pools for a larger number of skills, either be a mage (where the versatility will come more from your spells and spirits than from your skills), be an adept, or get a lot of augmentations.

I see Irian's points, in a way - I would only get gymnastics doge for a character that I could envision as the cartwheeling type.  But the character is question already has gymnastics.  He is the cartwheeling type.  So the question, in character, becomes "Would this character take the time and effort to learn two rather redundant ways of dodging?"  For most characters, the answer is no.  Honestly, for this general type of character, I would normally recommend dropping the gymnastics and keeping the dodge.  But this particular character has the entire athletics skill group pretty high, so it seems to be pretty integral to the character concept.  So in this case, I concur that it would be a good idea to drop dodge.

[baronspam]

On the gymnastic dodge thing-  I will admit that a cartwheel is probably the worst possible way to try to avoid gunfire.  But consider the following situation.  Gim, our gymnastics dodge character, turns a corner in a hallway and runs into two mooks who have been sent to gun him down.  They draw their guns and fire from the other end of the hall.  Gim, rather than doing a cartwheel, which would probably present the largest possible target, simply drops.  But instead of ending  up prone, he is in a one handed plank position, balanced on his toes and one hand with his chest an inch from the floor.  Bullets wizz through the empty space where Gim was standing a moment before.  With his free hand he pulls his machine pistol from its holster, and then rolls in a tight tumble into a perfect kneeling shooting stance.  Two short burts later mook number one is down.

Mook number two stands his ground and aims again.  Gim rolls again, this time back slightly and to the other side of the hallway.  Again, bullets pass through the space he had been in an instant before.  Again coming out of the roll he ends in a balanced kneeling shooting stance, and more bursts rip down the hallway.  Mood number two joins his ancestors.

Now come on, if you saw Jason Stratham do that in Transporter 27: revenge of the transmission fluid you would think it was the COOLEST SHIZ EVAH!

Combine gymnastic dodge with a black trench coat and some wired reflexes and you basically have Keanu doing the bullet time thing.  and alot of people thought that was cool.

It doesn't have to be a tumbling run.  Because that would actually make you a huge and obvious target.  But there are lots of ways gymnastics skills can help you dodge.