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Adept Assassin

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SoraTsubasa

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« on: <08-02-12/1911:03> »
So I started statting a new character today as a backup for my technomancer. This is the current build, an assassin using adept powers:

Metatype : Elf
Adept

Attributes:
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3

Edge: 2
Magic: 4
Initiative: 9
Essence: 6
 
Knowledge Skills
: N
       
Active Skills:
Disguise : 4
Inflitration : 4
Palming : 4
Shadowing : 4
Perception : 4
Blades (Knives) : 3
Locksmith : 2
Escape artist : 2
Gymnastics : 3
Climbing : 2
Pistols (Semi-Automatics) : 3
 
 
Positive Qualities:
Catlike
Common Sense
Lightning Reflexes
       
Negative Qualities:
Geas
Low Pain Tolerance
SINner Criminal
Liar
 
Weapons:
Garrote
Vibro Blade Knife
Ceramic Knife
Ares Predator IV
Hidden Gun Arm Slide
Silencer
15x Regular Ammo (10 shots)
Capsule Rounds (10 shots)
       
Armour:
Camouflage Suit
 
Equipment:
Commlink : Meta Link
Subvocal Microphone
OS : Vector Xim
Autopicker (Rating 6)
Keycard Copier (Rating 6)
Climbing Gear
Wire clippers
Sequencer (Rating 4)
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
Full Face Mask
10x Jazz (Popper)
Contact Lenses
+Vision Enhancement (Rating 2)
Earbud
+ Audio Enhancement (Rating 2)
10x Neuro-Stun (Toxin)
Atropine (Toxin)
 
Powers:
Traceless Walk
Gliding
Flexibility (Level 2)
Cloak (Level 2)
Improved Ability : Combat Skill (Level 2 Blades)
 
Contacts:
Hemlock (L:3 C:4)
Poison dealing chemist


If anyone has any tips for improvement that would be great. I am also lacking a street name for this particular character, meaning suggestions fo rthat would also be great.

UmaroVI

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« Reply #1 on: <08-02-12/2017:25> »
Having Locksmith but not Hardware means you are good at opening locks that went out of date fifty years ago. Just own an autopicker - if you want to be good at B&E, hardware is the skill you need.

Intuition is very important and you have a lot of Intuition-linked skills. I'd really try to get Intuition 5; both Strength and Logic are less important than that.

Lightning Reflexes is a horrifically bad quality. Do not take it. Even if you don't have Improved Reflexes now (and really you should if you care even slightly about combat), you'll want it later. I cannot stress enough how bad Lightning Reflexes is for anyone who isn't a Free Spirit.

Catlike is really mediocre. You're paying 10 bp for +1 to half a skill group which is very meh. Having better skills is a more valuable use of your BP.

You have 2 of the 4 Athletics skills; it's probably worth having the group. You are saving all of 12 bp to not have Athletics 4; it's not really worth it.

You should try to have a 6 in some skill. It saves you points later.

Liar is a really odd and underpriced negative quality that shafts you something fierce; you lose 1 loyalty per 8 or so interactions with a contact, no matter what you do, forever, on top of other serious drawbacks. It's not worth it for 5 bp. Something like Compulsion (Compulsive Liar) might be an alternate quality that isn't horrible.

Why do you have rating 2 visiion/audio enhancements? You are saving like 200 nuyen to not have rating 3.

You have Magic 4 and no ware! Bad adept, no cookie! Always have magic 5; you may want to have some bioware (it is more optimal, you may want to pick it up later, holistic wellness etc etc).

Can you use Ways?

Your adept powers are ... not so great. Gliding is a really, really niche power that is enormously overpriced. Traceless Walk is worse than Improved Ability (Infiltration), although you can only take so much IA, so you may want Traceless Walk anyways.

Both Escape Artist and Flexibility are super niche.

Cloak is about as useful as a tinfoil hat. It really won't help you.

Improved Combat Ability, while not a bad power in and of itself, will not help you win fights half as much as Improved Reflexes.

Improved Ability is really good for a skill-focused adept and you should probably have more of that and less really niche powers.

There are many better guns than the Ares Predator. Your knives are good, but I'm not sure you are actually good enough with them to want to use them over a silenced gun very often; you don't hit very hard at all. Can you use Martial Arts? Some +DV Blades MA would help a lot.

Glyph

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« Reply #2 on: <08-02-12/2246:44> »
You will want a Maglock passkey for opening Maglocks.  A sequencer is useless without the hardware skill, which is needed to get the case open.

SoraTsubasa

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« Reply #3 on: <08-03-12/0904:54> »
Here's my new character updated as much has possible:



Metatype : Elf
Adept

Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 5
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3

Edge: 2
Magic: 5
Initiative: 10
Essence: 6
        
Active Skills:
Disguise : 4
Inflitration : 4
Palming : 4
Shadowing : 4
Perception : 4
Blades (Knives) : 4
Pistols (Semi-Automatics) : 5
Gymnastics : 3
 
 
Positive Qualities:
Common Sense
Black Market Pipeline
Martial Arts 1 (Arnis De Mano, +1 DV on blades)
Perceptive
       
Negative Qualities:
Geas
Low Pain Tolerance
SINner Criminal
Compulsive 1 (Liar)
 
Weapons:
Garrote
Ceramic Knife
Hidden Gun Arm Slide
Silencer
15x Regular Ammo (10 shots)
Capsule Rounds (10 shots)
Savalette Guardian
Cougar Fineblade Knife Long Blade
Vibroblade Knife
       
Armour:
Camouflage Suit

Equipment:
Commlink : Meta Link
OS : Vector Xim
Subvocal Microphone       
Autopicker (Rating 6)
Keycard Copier (Rating 6)
Climbing Gear
Wire clippers
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
Full Face Mask
10x Jazz (Popper) (- 10%)
Contact Lenses
+Vision Enhancement (Rating 3)
Earbud
+ Audio Enhancement (Rating 3)
10x Neuro-Stun (Toxin) (- 10%)
Atropine (Toxin) (- 10%)
Maglock Passkey (Rating 4)
 
Powers:
Improved Ability : Combat Skill (Level 2 Blades)
Improved Reflexes (level 1)
Improved Ability : Other Skill (Level 4 Infiltration)
Improved Ability : Combat Skill (Level 2 Pistols)
        
Contacts:
Hemlock (L:3 C:4)
Poison dealing chemist

UmaroVI

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« Reply #4 on: <08-03-12/1123:13> »
OK, looking much better. Minor tweaks now:

You have 3 different Improved Abilities for Agility-linked skills. Drop a rank on all 3, and then get yourself Improved Physical Attribute (Agility) 1, which will bump your Agility from 6 to 7 and help you just as much for .5 pp less.

You cannot have more levels of an Improved Ability than half your rank in the skill, rounded down, so even after that you can have at most 2 in Improved Ability (Infiltration).

I'd try to get the maneuver Two-Weapon Style; it's one of the biggest things that melee adepts get and combined with Improved Ability (Blades) will let you win a lot of melee fights easily. Without that you are really better off just shooting people. I'd drop the specialization on your pistols for that, and buy it back with karma later.

Get the weapon modification "Personalized Grip" on your melee weapons. It's very cheap and is +1 to hit.

The Savalette Guardian is not a very good pistol. If you don't want to monkey around with the gun modification rules, a Yamaha Sakura Fubuki with stick-n-shock and a Ruger Super Warhawk with Ex-Ex are a good set of guns. If you do, check the first link in my sig and the "Gunslinger" character for some examples.

You can wear much better armor. You should always start with Form-Fitting Body Armor, then put some other piece on top of it, then use SecureTech PPP Systems armor to "round out" your encumbrance to 6/6. If you want Ruthenium (which is good, definitely) you can put it on another armor item (or just on a regular poncho you put on over your other armor).


SoraTsubasa

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« Reply #5 on: <08-03-12/1220:52> »
I've made most of these changes thatks, owever I have spent too much money and was wondering whether there was any way I could cut down on that. I desided to drop the warhawk as it doesn't play to teh assassin build, what with it being a giant revolver. I also have 0.5 Power points left for magic so any other suggestions there would be great. Another question, when you talk about the poncho would this just come under clothing (Cheap)?

UmaroVI

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« Reply #6 on: <08-03-12/1503:36> »
Yes, Poncho would be just ordinary clothing (it's found under Armor and Clothing in SR4A, and it is considered 0/0 armor).

I would definitely own a gun that can destroy vehicles/drones effectively, but I can understand wanting something more discrete. Another good option is a Krime Stopper light pistol (Gun Heaven 2). Get a Silencer mod, Firing Selection Change: SA, and a Personalized Grip, then load it with Ex-Ex. It has the drawback of a really small magazine, but it's actually a pretty sensible weapon for an assassin, and it gives you an option against drones.

How much money are you over? Your options are basically to either start the game without some gear you need and buy it later (which is not actually unreasonable; since you're an adept you only have so many uses for money) or free up another few BP for a bit more nuyen. Looking at it, I would probably make the following tweaks:

-1 Gymnastics
Lose the specializations on Pistols and Blades
+1 Pistols
+20000ny

The reason is that getting the Gymnastics and the specializations back is 10 karma, but getting that last point of Blades would be 12 karma. And this also frees up enough nuyen.

SoraTsubasa

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« Reply #7 on: <08-03-12/1520:49> »
I managed to sort the money issues out, I now have 2 spare Nuyen. Even with  The warhawk, reasoning that I can take the Fubuki on assassinations and use the warhawk for expected combat. I figured that if  getting the two weapon style maneuver I'd also go for the ambidextrous quality.

I am now only missing the last spell for 0.5pp and then all that is left is name and background (The hardest part).

UmaroVI

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« Reply #8 on: <08-03-12/1535:16> »
I'd probably take one level of Counterstrike. It's not worth it past one level, but the first level combines very effectively with Two-Weapon Style.

SoraTsubasa

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« Reply #9 on: <08-03-12/1630:46> »
Thanks so much for this help. I am looking forward to playing this character now.

UmaroVI

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« Reply #10 on: <08-04-12/0233:05> »
No problem, glad I could help.