[Black]

Hi All,

A player recently gave me a character with the following combination and I would like your opinion on how this combination may stack up in play:
Stats:
6 Body
8 Agility
8 Reaction
7 Strength (12 with Attribute Boost)... Actually 15.  His armour has +3 Strength boost.
11 Initiative
3 IP
Qualities
Adept
Ambidexterous
Arnies De Mano, Ares Firefight, Krav Maga, Sangre y Acero
Skills
6( Blades (Knives)
4(6) Pistols (Automatics)
4(6) Unarmed (Martial Arts)
Martial Arts Advantages
+2 to Called Shots to disarm
Disarm Damage
Ready Weapon
Reduce Attacker is Melee modifer 3
Martial Arts Manuevers
Disarm
Watchful Guard
Two Weapon Style
Finishing Move
Riposte
Adept Powers
Attribute Boost : Strength
Nimble Fingers
Improved Reflexes
Multi-Tasking
Mystic Armour
Weapons
Kris Weapon Focus R4 20DP 5P (7P when wearing the armour)
2xCougar Knife 17DP 5P I-1 (7P when wearing the armour)
2xBereta 97 15DP 5P
Other
20 DP for Parry with the Kris
23 B / 12 I armour without encumbrance.  Armour comes with mobility upgrade, RP coating and +3 strength boost)
Regeneration (she's a shapeshifter)
I'm currently reviewing the character and I have come to realise the increadibly lethal nature of this combination.  For example Two Weapon Style allows a character to attack in combat, but also use full Parry Defence without costing any additional actions.  So already good.  Then you can use Disarm as part of your full defence, without costing an action.  Then you have disarm damage.  So the character makes an attack, gets full parry defence which they can use to disarm which also does damage.  You can Disarm during full Parry as many times as you are attacked, losing -1 per a defence (which Watchful Guard somewhat offsets), except that this character does damage with each defence, and with a whopping 20 DP to begin with... and this character has 3 IP...
Thoughts?  Is this an impressive combination?  This is not a critique of the character as a whole, but this combination of stats, skills, qualities, martial arts and adept powers which seems to create a whirlwind of bladed destruction.  Does this combination work? Is it the best you've seen?  Would you let this combo into your games?  Could it have been done better?

[Ympulse]

How much karma/restricted gear slots do they have? Armor with those mods applicable is 20f at the lowest, and damned expensive.

Also, unless their Logic/Will/Cha are all tanked how does she have that many stat points?

And lastly, I don't see any ranged abilities, so unless you're throwing infiltration wetwork (Highly unlikely with the power armor she's wearing) she's going to be stuck behind a wall 70% of the time.

[UmaroVI]

Yeah, this isn't so much a good build as it is a character that spent a whole lot of BP and money on fighting.

What MA advantages exactly did he take?

What type of shifter is he?

Actually, can you just post the whole sheet?

[Critias]

Getting a high dice pool and a really high damage code in melee isn't the hard part -- making it applicable in more fights than not, getting ahold of the other guy before you get shot, smuggling those weapons and armor around in your day-to-day shadowrunning life, and still being a productive part of the team (bringing MORE to the table than "I stab people dead")?  Those are the hard parts.

[Black]

The player of the character is a really nice guy, he just happens to be really, really good at creating characters with massive dice pools and interesting combination of abilities.  The character in question is a revamp of an existing character, built now with 1,000 karma and approx 70 karma in advancement.  They did pick up a red samurai suit on a mission once.  So to clarify, this is not a 'new' character as such (though its heavily revamped, mostly for the better, trust me on that .

I won't post the entire character, at least not without checking with the player first.  Its not really a critique of the character as such, just the combonation that he has managed to put together.  Individually, most this items seem fairly harmless, but a combination of ambidextiours, two weapon style, disarm, and disarm damage, combined with massive Dice Pools... its a pretty fricken scary sight.  I was still a bit in shock when I posted last night .

As a GM, I'm a poor opitimizer.  The process of getting the biggest dice pool combination doesn't interest me much. I create characters with a focus on flavour and function, without much thought to getting this best dice outcome (not that I couldn't do all three, there not mutuly exclusive), so I have been a bit blindsided by optimized player characters before who look fine but then walk all over the opposition.  Thus I took a close look at the character and when the dots began to join... I had a OMG moment.  What looked life a fairly defensive, disarm and take down character, could easily be a combat monster of unrivalled proportions .  But I can't fault a player for choosing the combinations, nor is it against RAW per se. 

But do you, as GMs or players, run into many combinations like this, where one or two items seems fine, but when strung together they make extreme combinations?  And not just damage, but other stuff as well?

As is, I have the firmest hope that the player will play a well-rounded character and not let there character become a one-dimensional combat monster.  After all, its how the play the character that ultimately counts.

[Snaryl]

One thing I notice, and correct me if I'm wrong as I have never used KarmaGen, but the character has 4 martial arts (Arnies De Mano, Ares Firefight, Krav Maga, Sangre y Acero) and 7 advantages (+1 to Called Shots to disarm, +1 to Called Shots to disarm, Disarm Damage, Ready Weapon, Reduce Attacker is Melee modifier 1, Reduce Attacker is Melee modifier 1, Reduce Attacker is Melee modifier 1). To get 7 advantages, you would have to have multiple MAs that are rated higher than 1, or the equivalent of 7 Martial Arts.

That would mean a total of 50 BP of Positive Qualities (with Adept and Ambidextrous) in a Build Point System (not sure how that works for KarmaGen, whether Positive Qualities are capped.) You've said that these aren't new characters, so you may be fine with him having that many martial arts to start, but most people wouldn't be able to achieve that from CharGen.

One other thing, Disarm also hits the character with a -4 dice pool modifier, that would stack with the -1 for each additional defence made. So his Disarm dice pool would be 16, not 20. And would lower with each new attacked defended against. On top of that, the Disarm text under Arnis De Mano says that the arnisadors may inflict damage on the opponent when making a called shot to disarm. You can't call a shot when defending, so the parrying disarms wouldn't cause damage.

Another thing to be watchful of as a GM, which this character hasn't taken, is Riposte stacks very effectively with the adept power Counterstrike, each time the PC parries, those net hits are carried over to his next melee attack, as long as he retaliates with his next available action.

[Black]

ahhhh... thanks Snarl, did not notice that about disarm damage.  So he can only do damage on a disarm when its an agresive move, not when defending.  Thanks for pointing that out.  Seems less concerning now.

The character in question is an existing character revamped, so he had approx 70 karma to spend on advancements.  Some of the martial arts stuff is from those advancement spends.

[Demerzel]

The Arnis De Mano advantage specifically includes the Disarm maneuver in the text of the advantage. See the parenthetical on disarm including both the SR4A reference and the maneuver reference).

[Black]

So... can Disarm and Disarm Damage work together if used defensively, as opposed to making an call shot attack?

[Demerzel]

The text from Arse is:

arnisadors may inflict damage to their opponent when making a Called Shot to disarm (see p. 161, SR4A, or the Disarm maneuver on p. 159).

I don't see any argument that it somehow excludes the maneuver on p159 when it explicitly calls it out like that.

[Snaryl]

Good call Demerzel, I read the text about needing a Called Shot, but missed the reference to the Maneuver itself. Looks like it's allowed on defensive actions as an exception the the Called Shot requirement.

Question, would this mean that the Maneuver is considered a Called Shot? And if so does it count as your Free Action for that turn, thus limiting you to one defensive disarm per turn?

[UmaroVI]

Alright, my overall analysis:

He's pretty good at fighting people who are willing to go up against him in a very particular way, namely, trying to melee him with weapons. He's less good against people who try to melee him without weapons or just shoot him with guns even if he's in melee range, and he's only OK (relative to his pretty huge karma total and gear) at fighting people who he can't get into melee with. He's also got a glaring weakness in combat - he's dual-natured and has no ranged Mana attacks.

He's also not particularly optimized at combat; he does have that one good trick, but he's got a lot of asynergistic choices in that focus: +2 with called shots to disarm doesn't work together well with Riposte, which doesn't involve a called shot, the reduced attacker in melee penalty isn't particularly helpful to him since if he is in melee he's usually better off meleeing, and he has both Unarmed and Blades. He's also using concealable, restricted weapons and obvious, forbidden MilSpec armor.

Also, I think you are overestimating Attribute Boost. I don't know how he's getting 5 hits on average without having a high enough rank in it to take a whole lot of drain, and in any case, it's very situational, since it eats a simple action (locking out melee) and has a short duration.

[Black]

Thank you Umaro.   Nice analysis. Fill much better about this combination.

Thanks Snarl and Demerzel as well for the thoughts of disarm.

Very much appreciated all, +1

[Glyph]

By RAW, weapon foci only add to melee attacks, not defense.  That still leaves him with Reaction: 8 + edged weapons: (6 x 2) + specialization: 2 = 22 dice defending, 18 if he chooses to disarm.

Almost the perfect two-weapon style build, only missing one thing - a level of the Counterstrike power, which lets him take those extra successes from his free full defense and add them to his dice pool for his next attack (and he does have Riposte).

[Demerzel]

Question, would this mean that the Maneuver is considered a Called Shot? And if so does it count as your Free Action for that turn, thus limiting you to one defensive disarm per turn?

I was thinking about the same thing, and I could see the argument. It feels like it should, regularly disarming requires the Free Action, and there are other interrupt actions that require your free to be available such as intercept.

However, I'm not certain I could really call it proven from what is written. I think as a GM it would be very easy to require it, and just say it feels right and it's my table. But if you have a player who will argue with you over it be prepared for that to happen.