[Illume]

Name:
Alias: XXXXX
Race: Elf
Sex: Male
Nationality: XXXXX
Lifestyle: Middle(3 months, already paid)
Karma Spent: XXXXX
Physical Description: XXXXX
Personality/background XXXXX

Attributes

Body	Agility	Reaction	Strength
4	6(7)	5(7)	5
Charisma	Intuition	Logic	Willpower
3	4	1	2
Edge	Magic/Resonance	Essence	Initiative
2	5	6	9(11)

Positive Qualities
Martial Arts(Krav Maga, Ready Weapon as a free action):+5
Martial Arts(Sangre y Acero, +1 DV on Blades attacks):+5
Martial ArtsArnis De Mano, +1 DV on Blades attacks):+5
The Warriors Way(Adept):+10
Adept:+5
Restricted Gear:+5
Negative Qualities
Data Shadow(2):-10
Simsense Vertigo:-10
Poor Self-Control(Thrill-Seeker):-5
Allergy to silveR(Common-mild):-10
Active Skills

Blades Dodge Throwing Weapons Etiquette Unarmed Combat Pistols Pilot Ground Craft	6(Swords) 4 4 1 2 3 2

Adept Powers

Power	Cost	Notes
Combat Sense(Rank 3) Improved Reactions II Missile Mastery Improved Attribute Agility Attribute Boost Agility	1.125(1.5) 1.875(2.5) 1 .75 .25	Favored Power: 25% discount(Way of the Warrior) Favored Power: 25% discount(Way of the Warrior)

Gear (XXXXX¥)

Glasses(R4) -Vision Ench(R2) -Vision Magn. -Flare Compen. Contacts(R3) -Imagelink -Smartlink -Low-Light Vision Form Fitting Body-Suit Leather Jacket(Duster) SecureTech PPP Shin Guards Steampunk Overcoat Steampunk Slacks Steampunk Shirt Steampunk Vest Earbuds(R3) -Audio Ench(R2) -Spatial Recognizer FlaskPak Grenadex4 Thermal Smoke Grenadex4 Smoke Grenadex2 Frag. Grenadex6 Certified Credstickx4 Fake Sinx2(R4) Novatech Airware Iris Orb Common Use Program Suite Basic User Backpack Helmet AR Gloves Miniwelder Glue Sprayer Standard Rope(100m) Emotitoy, minidrone(Spider) Plasteel Restraintsx14 Flashlightx2 Lightstickx8 Middle Lifestyle(1month)x3

I really don't feel like listing out all the costs right now...

Weapon	Type	Mods	Costs
The Reaper	Ruger Super WarHawk	Ammo Skip System, Easy Breakdown Manual, Personalized Grip, Smartgun, Firing Selection Change(SA), Extended Cylinder, Hidden Arm Slide	2250
Sword(Kukri)	Weapon Focus R4	Personalized Grip	40450
Survival Knife		Personalized Grip, Conceable Holster	150

Vehicles
Suzuki Mirage

Handling	Accel	Speed	Pilot	Body	Armor	Sensor	Mods	Cost
2	20/50	200	1	6	4	1	Anti-Theft(2), Run Flat Tire, Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization, Morphing License Plate, Pilot Program(1)	8050

Contacts Contact C/L Flint(Fixer) 2/2 Maneuvers Maneuver
Finishing Move Disarm Iaijutsu Off-hand Training(Blades) Two Weapon Style Throw

Build Point totals:  400 = 190(stats)+30(race)+10(edge)+44(magic)+90(skills)+35(+Qualities)-35(-Qualities)+20(resources)+4(contacts)+12(Maneuvers)

Knowledge/Language skills still tba, so what do you guys think?

[Glyph]

You're still using the old SR4 base costs for your adept powers, rather than those from SR4A, where some of them dropped.  Improved Attribute is only 0.75 now, and Improved Reflexes is only 2.50 now.  So you could get (for example) Agility Boost: 1 to complement your Improved Agility, and an extra level of combat sense.

Purely a fluff, rather than crunch, quibble, but I have a hard time imagining a Ruger Super WarHawk in a hidden arm slide.  I just picture that gun as being way to big to be concealed against someone's forearm.

From a crunch perspective, I have to ask - do you really need a bonus to full parry, when you have combat sense, as well as full defense for free?  Because Arnis de Mano and Sangre y Acero could give you +2 damage value instead, which I think would be a lot more useful to you.  I will add that the Set up maneuver, as written, is all but useless.  It essentially trades what would have been a successful attack, for a bonus to your next attack.  I would consider replacing it with Disarm or Riposte.

[Glyph]

By the way, I noticed that you have 46 points for your Magic for some reason - it should be 40.  I would recommend putting those 6 points into skills, raising Blades to 6 and getting the Swords specialization for it.  No reason not to have a 6 in your primary skill.  The conventional wisdom regarding specializations is that they are "cheaper" after char-gen, when you buy them with karma, but honestly, sometimes it is worth it.  For either a primary skill, or a tertiary skill where you need a bonus to be effective at all - a specialization is worth the piddly 2 BP cost.

[Illume]

The extra 6 points are for bonding my weapon foci. You have to spend BP equal to the ratings to bind them. And the reason I have the bonus dice to full parry was originally to off-set the -2 mod for Two Weapon Style, but then I saw the off-hand training maneuver and just never got around to changing them, and I went ahead and replaced Set-up with Riposte. And thanks about the heads up about the decreased costs in the anniversary edition. I have both, and I could only find the original core book, and I didn't feel like digging around in my boxes for the anniversary >.>

Thanks for the feed-back!

And what do you think about dropping the R2 weapon focus? I'm only going to be using it to defend and it only gives bonus dice to offensive rolls. I could use the 6 bp I save on maxing out blades and getting sword spec.

[Kontact]

You can't benefit from more foci than you have logic, so dropping the second weapon foci is a sound choice.

[Glyph]

I agree with Kontakt on the second weapon focus, both because by RAW they only aid attacks, and because only one focus can add its dice to any one test - so it is of limited use to you.  Increasing your skill and getting the specialization will give you +3 dice to attack and +4 to defend.

[Illume]

I went ahead and changed everything you guys suggested. So I've got 20 dice, 6(skill)+2(spec)+1(pers. grip)+4(wep focus)+7(agility), for melee attacking, and then I have a question about specs for defense. Do they apply to defending too? The rulebook says to add the +2 to wherever it seems applicable, and it seems that it would be helpful to be extra-handy with a sword when your defending yourself with it. And then would it count twice for full parry since you roll melee skillx2, or only once? I assume just once, right?

And then I'm still a bit confused on the Two-Weapon style, could you guys answer a question for me? Arsenal says, "The character may choose to apply the Full Defense option using only one of these weapons, attacking with the other weapon as normal." When it says Full Defense, does it mean anyone of the full defense options? Cause the only one that really makes sense with this is full parry, I don't really see how you can make full dodge work with this.

That aside, anything else wrong or iffy that you guys see that is glaringly obvious?

And thanks for all the help so far guys, I really appreciate it.

[Charybdis]

I went ahead and changed everything you guys suggested. So I've got 19 dice(20 when I'm boosting agility) for melee attacking, and then I have a question about specs for defense. Do they apply to defending too? The rulebook says to add the +2 to wherever it seems applicable, and it seems that it would be helpful to be extra-handy with a sword when your defending yourself with it. And then would it count twice for full parry since you roll melee skillx2, or only once? I assume just once, right?

And then I'm still a bit confused on the Two-Weapon style, could you guys answer a question for me? Arsenal says, "The character may choose to apply the Full Defense option using only one of these weapons, attacking with the other weapon as normal." When it says Full Defense, does it mean anyone of the full defense options? Cause the only one that really makes sense with this is full parry, I don't really see how you can make full dodge work with this.

A) Yes, you apply the specialisation Twice when using full Parry.
B) RAW, it's confusing, but in our group we have an Adept using this maneuver (and very similar to your build, actually), and he only ever uses it with Full Parry, as it makes the most sense...

[Illume]

A) Yes, you apply the specialisation Twice when using full Parry.
B) RAW, it's confusing, but in our group we have an Adept using this maneuver (and very similar to your build, actually), and he only ever uses it with Full Parry, as it makes the most sense...

See, thats what I was thinking. The only thing it really makes sense with is Full Parry. I was only planning on ever using it for full parry anyway, but I was just curious. Thanks

Edit: And am I counting this right? I have 26 dice for full parry, 12(skillx2)+4(specx2)=3(combat sense)+7(reaction)=26. I am going to be just about untouchable in melee combat xD

[Charybdis]

A) Yes, you apply the specialisation Twice

Edit: And am I counting this right? I have 26 dice for full parry, 12(skillx2)+4(specx2)=3(combat sense)+7(reaction)=26. I am going to be just about untouchable in melee combat xD

Yes, you are counting it right
Yes, you will just about untouchable in Melee combat

However, don't get cocky. Bullets can't be parried (back to 10 dice to dodge, - Wide burst modifiers etc).

In melee, Gangers can, gang-up on you (+5 dice for their attacks via friends in melee, -5 dice to your defense via consecutive defense rolls)

You're good, but you're not god. Mind the spelling there and you'll be OK

[Glyph]

Specialization is a dice pool bonus, so it is not doubled - only the skill itself is doubled.  What you want to do, eventually, is get +3 improved ability in your Blades skill, so that it will be 18 when doubled.  Also, on your dice pools, don't forget that you also get +1 reach for a sword, which is another die for both offense and defense.

Other improvements when you get more karma:
Get the Arnis de Mano ability that lets you cause damage on a disarm (which uses full defense).  Get the riposte maneuver and at least one level of counterstrike - it lets you add your successes in parrying as extra dice for your counterattack (and the riposte maneuver lets you take an out-of-sequence attack right after you successfully block an attack).

[Charybdis]

Specialization is a dice pool bonus, so it is not doubled - only the skill itself is doubled. 

I don't think this is true.

Otherwise, if a PC had specialisations in both Blades (Swords) and Dodge (Melee) , the PC would get the +2 dice to stack from both skills (+4 total), but can only get +2 total with just the single skill (x2) on Full Parry? Doesn't seem consistent...

It doesn't mention a 'dice pool bonus' in the description of Specialisations on SR4A p.121.... just +2 dice when the specialisation is applicable to the test...

Well, if the skill is applicable twice, the Specialisation should follow the same ruling shouldn't it?

Is this in the FAQ? It's a fine line, so I'm prepared to be wrong

[Glyph]

I guess it's up to individual interpretation.  I think the skill is the only thing that is explicitly doubled, but there is not really enough on specializations to say one way or another, regarding doubling them or not.  I really wish the rules had a lot more detailed, explicit examples - it would make a lot of the rules much, much clearer.

[fikealox]

It's not a very clearly stated area of the rules, but I'm inclined to use Glyph's interpretation, because my copy of SR4 (p. 68) says that a 'specialization grants the character a dice pool modifier of +2 dice...'

[Charybdis]

It's not a very clearly stated area of the rules, but I'm inclined to use Glyph's interpretation, because my copy of SR4 (p. 68) says that a 'specialization grants the character a dice pool modifier of +2 dice...'

I understand this interpretation, hence my 'fine line comments'.

However, then ask yourself..

Example:
If the PC has a dice pool using both Dodge (Melee specialisation) and Blades (Sword Specialisation)... would you let both Specialisations add the +2 Dice modifier?

RAW, the answer should be yes (as dice pool modifiers normally stack).

So the only issue we're debating is whether:
1) Dice pool modifiers can stack for using the same skill if used twice in a single roll
or
2) Dice pool modifiers don't stack for the same skill if used twice in a single roll

For me, I think option 1) is more consistent with the example provided.
I still think option 2) is also a valid interpretation, but it is less aligned with the RAW example... hence the friendly disagreement