[Ratboy]

I'm trying to understand character building by looking at the Hacker build on page 105 of the SR4A book.  There are several points with the character that I don't understand--they seem at odds with what's elsewhere in the book.

First:
The active skill BP don't seem to add up.

Skill                 Rating        Cost
Cybercombat             4            16
Dodge                   2             8
Electronics Group       4            40
Electronic Warfare      5            20
Etiquette (Matrix)      1 (+2)        8 (+2)*
Forgery                 2             8
Hacking                 5            20
Perception              3            12
Pistol                  2             8
Total Cost                          142 BP
*"Uncouth" quality doubles cost of Social skill--I'm not sure whether the specialization in Matrix is doubled.

But the character on p 105 lists "138 BP" of active skills.  What's up with that?  Did I do something wrong?  Did they forget "Uncouth"?


Second thing:
The character has an "implanted Sony Emperor"...with Ratings of Response 5, Signal 5, System 5, and Firewall 5.  The  Sony Emperor has a Response of 2 (SR4A p 328), and SR4A p 222 says that a device rating can't be boosted more than +2 above it's original number, so how does he have Response 5?!?


Third:
The character has numerous augmentations.  From the way I read it, the Cybereyes Rating 2 can hold the additional modifications (e.g., thermographic vision) without any Essence loss above the 0.3 for the eyes.  But it seems there should be loss for:

Implanted Commlink (0.2) with SimModule (0.2) modified for BTL/HotSim (I assume this replaces the SimModule cost and is just on a different line to show availability and different cost?) =0.4 Essence
Control rig (0.5), Datajack (0.1), and Data Lock (0.1) = 0.7 Essence
So Cyberware is 0.3+0.4+0.7=1.4 Essence from Cyberware

Enhanced Articulation (0.2), Skin Pocket (0.1), and Sleep Regulator (0.15) = 0.45 Essence from Bioware

Essence is therefore 6 - 1.4 - 0.225 = 4.375, but the character is listed as having 4.32 Essence.  What is being miscalculated?


Fourth:
With respect to the "free BP" for Knowledge skills, they seem to be "free ratings" not "BP"...is that right?   In other words, a Rating 2 Knowledge skill costs only 2 of those free points, but would need 4 additional regular BP to raise it to Rating 3??

I appreciate the time of anyone who took the effort to read through this...and additional appreciation for replies!

[Henzington]

First,  the premade character are all not great and contain errors like those you have pointed out.  When purschasing knowledge skills its 1 bp per rating and you recieve 3 times (Int+Log) free.  Also specialization are more expensive during character creation 2 bp versus 2 karma so dont get them and buy them with your first karma during play.

[Glyph]

First: They forgot to double the cost for the etiquette skill.  They did that in the original SR4 book, too.

Second: This is the brand of commlink the archetype had in SR4; obviously they forgot to change it to account for the new rules (just like the old face still had a Mitsubishi Nightsky for awhile, after the errata drastically raised the price of one).

Third: they actually got this one right, although they did some rounding.  Your Essence cost for the cyberware is spot on: 1.40 Essence.  The bioware is actually 0.55 (the enhanced articulation is 0.30 Essence cost).  However, the Essence cost for the bioware, being the lower of the two, gets halved.  So 0.55/2 = 0.275, which they round up to 0.28.  So 1.40 plus 0.28 = 1.68, and 6.00 minus 1.68 = 4.32.

So yay!  They got one thing out of three right!  Don't worry, though.  All of these errors should be corrected with the next errata, which should come out shortly after they get the one for Runner's Companion done. 

[rasmusnicolaj]

I suggest looking at Umaro's archtypes instead and learn from there.

Rasmus

[All4BigGuns]

I suggest looking at Umaro's archtypes instead and learn from there.

Rasmus

Ones like the smuggler seem pretty viable to me with just a few little 'personal preference tweaks' here and there.