[cowtipping_extremist]

Hey all, it's my very first SR char so I'd love advice on things I've done wrong, things that don't make sense, redundant abilities/skills, etc., etc. My char gen selections are limited to the core rule book.

Thanks!

Breakdown:
Lucky is a human B&E and ranged combat guy who is built around being the result of a corporate experiment in which they were trying to boost a baby's magical potential. It didn't work, but it did give this particular human an uncanny paranormal ability to perform statistically improbable feats (as reflected in his Edge). His "sensitive system" reflects his body's almost mage-like inclination towards real flesh and avoiding robotic parts.

He's still got 2700 leftover nuyen and 28 BP remaining. What say you??


"Lucky"

Race (0 BP) : Human

Attributes (265 BP) :
Body= 4
Agility= 5
Reaction= 4
Strength= 2
Charisma= 3
Intuition= 4
Logic= 2
Willpower= 3

Edge= 8
Essence= 5.8
Mag/Res= 0
Initiative= 8

Positive Qualities (20 BP) :
Lucky

Negative Qualities (-35 BP) :
Addiction (mild), novacoke
Allergy (mild), gold
Incompetent, hacking
Weak immune system
Sensitive system

Skills (130 BP) :
Automatics= 5 (assault rifles +2)
Heavy weapons= 1
Long arms= 1
Pistols= 4
Gunnery= 1
Infiltration= 5 (urban +2)
Dodge= 3 (ranged +2)
Disguise= 3
Perception= 3 (visual +2)
Shadowing= 1
Locksmith= 1

Athletics (group)= 2
Influence (group)= 2
Close combat (group)= 1

Knowledge = ??
Language = ??

Gear + nuyen cost (9 BP) :
Ceska Black Scorpion (550)
**Hidden Arm Slide (350)
**Laser Sight (100)
**2 spare clips (10)
**40 explosive rounds (200)
**80 regular ammo (160)

Ares Alpha (1700)
**Gas-vent, rating 3 (400)
**4 spare clips (20)
**1 spare grenade clip (5)
**170 APDS rounds (1190)
**6 high explosive grenades (270)
**6 frag grenades (210)

Shock Glove (200)
Parashield Dart Pistol (600)
**1 spare clip (5)
**10 narcojet darts (575)
**Concealable holster (75)

Armor vest (600)
Chameleon suit (8000)
**Thermal damping, rating 5 (2500)
Meta Link commlink (100)
Fake SINs, rating 5, rating 5, rating 3 (13000)
Earbuds, rating 3 (30)
**Audio enhancement +3 (300)
Smartlink (500)

Autopicker, rating 3 (600)
Cellular glove molder, rating 3 (600)
Keycard copier, rating 6 (1800)
Maglock sequencer, rating 6 (1200)
Miniwelder (250)
Monofilament chainsaw (300)

Respirator, rating 6 (150)
Gecko Tape Gloves (250)

Docwagon Contract, basic (5000)
Datajack, .2 essence (500)

Leftover Nuyen= 2,700

Contacts (8 BP) :
Bartender (conn=2, loy=2)
Street Doc (conn=3, loy=1)

[CanRay]

Arm slide for a Scorpion machine pistol?

Got big arms!

[baronspam]

Things to add.  They may not all fit without cuts in other areas-

Unless you are already bumping up against a low dice pool max set by your GM, get more agility.  Muscle toner 2 at minimum,   For a higher powered campaign get Restricted gear and muscile toner 4. It helps your combat and helps with infiltration, which is probably your key skill for B&E.

You have put alot of skills toward combat but only have one IP.  Unless its a low powered campaign you want at least one more IP.  Wired reflexes 1 only costs 11k nuyen (about 2 bp) and it well worth it.  You have essence to spare.

Get the hardware skill, its your main skill for defeating security devices and electronic locks.  Locksmith is nice but only works on older fashioned mechanical locks.   

A synthacardium implant is a nice bonus to your athletics skills.  Level 3 (max) costs 6 build points for +3 to all athletics dice pools, that a very efficient use of points.

If you are short on points and need to cut consider dropping either longarms (first choice), gunnery, or heavy weapons (I would drop this last).  You have good combat options with pistols and automatics.  Don't spread yourself too thin.

Edit:  Didn't notice the sensitive system first time through.  Thats a tough one to buy into.  Even with your high edge, a unaugmented, non-magical character is the least supported option in Shadowrun.  Unless you are playing in a low powered campaign, or just don't care about "being behind", these types of characters are very inefficient.  Talk to your GM about expected power levels.  It is very possible this type of build will place you somewhat "behind the curve" of other characters at the table.

[UmaroVI]

Rating 6 maglock sequencer is 18F. APDS rounds are 16F. Rating 5 fake SINs are 15F.

Hardware is a required skill to be a B&E specialist; you cannot currently bypass Maglocks, which are the most common type of lock in 2073, except by blasting the case off and then using your sequencer (and if it has an anti-tamper system, you'll set off the alarm). You also cannot bypass Cardreaders - another common system - without a Maglock Passkey.

In general, you have a lot of inefficiency - mostly caused by trying to be the infamous "mundane human with no augmentations," which is pretty much lighting a lot of stuff that makes you good at things on fire. If you want to do it anyways, get Hardware 4 (Maglock specialization), +1 logic, and scrape up for a Rating 4 Maglock Passkey, which will allow you to do your job. Also, a lot of GMs will not consider that Incompetence (Hacking) on a character who would blow chunks at hacking anyways to be legit.

Smartlink is something you put on Cybereyes, goggles, or contacts - you can't just have Smartlink, you have to put it into something.

Parashield Dart Pistol is Exotic Weapons, not whatever you think it is.

Although not base book only, take a look at my sig and look at the Spook for an example of a similar type of character.

[cowtipping_extremist]

Arm slide for a Scorpion machine pistol?

Got big arms!

Lol. Well, arm slides are cinematic props anyhow. I doubt they'd "work" as intended for most guns. Regardless, I don't see any RAW reason why the Ceska wouldn't work? Or maybe I'm missing something?

[cowtipping_extremist]

Edit:  Didn't notice the sensitive system first time through.  Thats a tough one to buy into.  Even with your high edge, a unaugmented, non-magical character is the least supported option in Shadowrun.  Unless you are playing in a low powered campaign, or just don't care about "being behind", these types of characters are very inefficient.  Talk to your GM about expected power levels.  It is very possible this type of build will place you somewhat "behind the curve" of other characters at the table.

Thanks for the advice baronspam! I'll definitely take it into consideration. You raise a good point with IP. I'd honestly not even read that section until now. hahaha

[cowtipping_extremist]

Thanks for the input umarovi! It's appreciated. I still have a lot to learn. Some comments/questions below.

Rating 6 maglock sequencer is 18F. APDS rounds are 16F. Rating 5 fake SINs are 15F.

I don't get it? Do I need to roll for availability tests at char gen?

Hardware is a required skill to be a B&E specialist; you cannot currently bypass Maglocks, which are the most common type of lock in 2073, except by blasting the case off and then using your sequencer (and if it has an anti-tamper system, you'll set off the alarm). You also cannot bypass Cardreaders - another common system - without a Maglock Passkey.

But I have a keycard copier? Can't I copy someone else's keycard and produce a passkey that way? I'm probably misunderstanding how break-in process works...

In general, you have a lot of inefficiency - mostly caused by trying to be the infamous "mundane human with no augmentations," which is pretty much lighting a lot of stuff that makes you good at things on fire. If you want to do it anyways, get Hardware 4 (Maglock specialization), +1 logic, and scrape up for a Rating 4 Maglock Passkey, which will allow you to do your job. Also, a lot of GMs will not consider that Incompetence (Hacking) on a character who would blow chunks at hacking anyways to be legit.

I pulled my Incompetence from the Street Samurai example character in the core book. That's an "official" character who would have even less need of hacking than me, so I don't see why a GM would balk.

Thanks again.

[CanRay]

I don't get it? Do I need to roll for availability tests at char gen?

Availability is capped at 12 for character creation.

It prevents people from blowing a Quarter-Million you can get at character creation on a used Tank. 

[Critias]

Bounce the character's efficiency (or lack thereof) off your would-be GM, not the internet.  Opinions of your character will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of the archetypes (like the Street Samurai you mentioned) will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of what counts as a reasonable die pool will vary wildly.

What counts more than interner opinions, though, are what's expected in your game.  There's nothing innately wrong with a mundane, unaugmented, human, if that's a reasonable level of competency for your game.  But you'll want to talk to your GM and see if that's the case.  How your character meets up to your table's expectations is a whole lot more important than how it meets up to ours.

[CanRay]

Or have your GM come here and listen to the insanity! 

[UmaroVI]

Yes, in some games, it's fine to be an unaugmented mundane human. Really it comes down to "talk to your GM about expected power level, maybe look at some other characters."

Re: the keycard copier, that only works if you HAVE someone else's keycard. If you don't, you need a maglock passkey - it's kind of like a "skeleton key."

[baronspam]

Bounce the character's efficiency (or lack thereof) off your would-be GM, not the internet.  Opinions of your character will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of the archetypes (like the Street Samurai you mentioned) will vary wildly here on the forums, opinions of what counts as a reasonable die pool will vary wildly.

What counts more than interner opinions, though, are what's expected in your game.  There's nothing innately wrong with a mundane, unaugmented, human, if that's a reasonable level of competency for your game.  But you'll want to talk to your GM and see if that's the case.  How your character meets up to your table's expectations is a whole lot more important than how it meets up to ours.

This is very much it.  Shadowrun's character build system has very little forced balanced to it.  Character's with the same build point value can have wildly different levels of power and mechanical effectiveness.  The important thing is to have one that fits into the campaign you are playing in.  Overall, the character you posted is toward the lower end of the scale, but that doesn't mean its not a good fit for the table you will be playing at.  A min/maxed cyber death machine is as disruptive to a low powered campaign as a lower powered character is to a powergamer campaign.

On the availability 12 thing, standard rules say that you can only start with gear that is rating 12 or lower.  There is a five point positive quality in Runner's Companion called "Restricted Gear" that lets you buy one item of up to a 20 rating(either at creation, or you can save it and use it during play).  You can take this quality up to 3 times.  Again, check with your GM about how he is handling gear.  But the "default" rule is nothing above 12 out of the box, and the Restricted Gear quality if you are using Runner's Companion.

[Critias]

Anyone who wants to be a B&E guy needs to read over the Maglock rules (SR4A, p. 263) to get a handle on the options; passkey sometimes, sequencer sometimes, etc, but the Hardware skill plenty.  I'd look into Skill Groups to tighten up some of the stuff you've got, and see if you couldn't drop a few of the level 1 skills you've got to free up enough points for Hardware.

[PMC Scholar]

Or have your GM come here and listen to the insanity! 

I might just do that.  In fact I did just do that.  I myself am new to this version of Shadowrun; I last played it over 6 years ago back in 3rd edition.  This campaign is going to be a learning experience for everyone involved I think.  As a player for instance I never figured out magic as I never used it.  I see that changing . 

Anyways some rules decisions:
-I don't care if what the availability of gear is for my characters, if some gear is too ridiculous I'll just veto it.  If someone wants a tank they can have it.  Good luck using it in downtown Seattle though.....  Having an edge from rare cyber-wear or the like could be just the thing to set the PC's above the rest of the street trash.   
-As far as power level goes I'm trying for more an investigatory type game so any level of player should work.   

Also I have a question myself for the forums.  Which rules supplement is best for general character creation?  So far I have the core rulebook and  arsenal because I've always been a bit of a gear obsessed myself.   

[baronspam]

For what books to get- depends on how much you want to spend

If would get augmentation to go with arsenal.  I also really like Runner's Companion.  RC has advanced lifestyle rules, a bunch of new positive and negative qualities, and rules for making other metatypes, and other "optional" character types like changelings, AIs, etc. 

From there it depends what type of characters have in your group.  If you have a matrix specialist, especially a technomancer, the Unwired book has alot of neat options.  If you aren't running a matrix heavy campaign its a lot of detail and record keeping that might be optional.  Similar thing with Street magic.  If you have a magicain in the party it has more spells, a bunch of new magic traditions to draw on, more spirits, magic enemies, etc.  In a low magic campaign it can probably wait.

One thing you might seriously look at is a boxed set called Runner's Toolkit.  This has  all kinds of cool stuff in it thats good for new players.  There is a starting adventure, a GM Screen, some master lists of gear, qualities, etc.  There is modular quick build character system called PACS that can help someone knock out a character in a hurry.  And my favorite is something called "Anatomy of a Shadowrun" that has a double column text, a story in fiction form in the left column and then a explanation of all the game mechanics to simulate the story in the right column.

If you want a setting book there are a couple of good options.  There is a good Seattle book out for 4th ed and a recent book called Spy Games has a detailed write up about Denver. 

From there there is a ton of other stuff, both in PDF only and print, but thats kind of the core where I would start.