[Csjarrat]

hi guys, just wondering if you can help out with my first 4e character:

chiyoko hideko character sheet, 4th edition 400BP

human adept:
Physical attributes:
Agility 5 (40)
Body 4 (30)
Reaction 5 (40)
Strength 3 (20)

Mental attributes:
Charisma 2 (10)
Intuition 3 (20)
Logic 3 (20)
Willpower 3 (20)
(200 spent)

Qualities:
+adept 5BP
+athletes way 10bp
-moderate cat allergy +15bp
-Sensitive system +15bp
-Sensitive neural structure +5bp

Initiative 8
Essence 6
220 BP to spend:
Magic 6 (65)

Skills:
Athletics skill group 4 (climbing/gymnastics/running/swimming) 40bp
Stealth skill group 3 (Disguise/infiltration/palming/shadowing) 30bp
automatics 4 (assault rifles +2) 18bp
pilot ground vehicle 1 4bp
pistols 2 (semi-auto +2) 10bp
unarmed 2 8bp
perception 2 8bp
computer 1 (analyze +2) 4bp
hacking 3(4) (spoof +2) 14bp
208/208

Adept powers:
6 power points:
-Wall running (.75 *way power)
-Improved Reflexes 1 (1.5)
-improved ability (automatics) (.5)
-combat sense 1 (.5)
-free fall 2 (.5)
-great leap 4 (.75 *way power)
-attribute boost 1 (reaction) .25
-attribute boost 1 (agility) .25
-improved ability 4 gymnastics (.75 *way power)
-improved ability 1 hacking .25


9 BP spent on gear (45,000Y)

gear:
FN HAR assault rifle 1000 (laser sight and gas vent 2)
-Suppressor 300
-Imaging scope 300
     -vision magnigfication 100
     -thermographic 100
     -ultrasound 1000
-Shock pad (-1 recoil) 50
-Sling 10 (-1 recoil)
-foregrip (-1 recoil) 100
-Chameleon coating 1000 (2 slots/6)
-Personalised Grip 100 (-1 recoil) (1 slot/6)
-Skinlink (1 slot/6) (50)
Underbarrel Weight 25 (1 slot/6)
                                                                       4,035

Fichetti 600 (laser sight and folding stock)
-silencer 200
-concealable holster 75
-skinlink 50
                                                                       925

Armour:
FFBA 1600 (6B/2I)
     -nonconductivity 2 400
industrious line coverall (5B/4I) 900 (chem 2, fire 2)
     -ruthenium polymer coating 7500
Helmet (+1B/2I)
     -respirator 4 100
     -flashlight 25
                                                                       10,625

Vehicles:
ThunderCloud Contrail bike 5000 (10 mod slots)
-Run flat tires 500
-Spoof chip 500
-Morphing plate 1000
-Gridlink Override 2000                                                 9,000

Shiawase Kanmushi micro-drone 1,000 (walker)

Misc:
glasses 50 (rating 2)
-Image link 25
-Flare compensation 50

Ear buds 10 (rating 1)
Mini microphone 50 (rating 1)

Commlink:
Novatech Airware 1250 (response/signal 3/3)
  -Iris Orb 1000 (system/firewall 3/3)
  -trodes 50
  -AR gloves 250
  -pro user software suite 600 (analyze 4/browse 4/command 2/edit 4)
  -skinlink 50
  -spoof 3 1500
  -exploit 3 1500
  -stealth 3 1500

Fake license 2 (concealed Weapon carry) 200
Fake license 2 (Contrail bike) 200
Fake license 2 (weapon onwership) 200
Maglock passkey 3 6,000
Medkit lvl4 400
Geckotape gloves 250
Fake Sin 2 (kyoko samato) 2,000
Low lifestyle (1 month) 2,000
1 Contact Joey "Walker" (smuggler/johnson. loyalty 2, connection 2)
44,705_______________________________________________________

Ammo + Clips:

x400 normal assault rifle rounds in x10 clips  850
x40 Ex-Explosive assault rifle rounds in x10 clip 405
x60 normal pistol rounds in x2 clips 130
flash bang grenade x1 30
smoke grenade x1 30
frag grenade x1 35

45,800 spent.


so the concept initially was for a free runner adept, running the shadows as a courier for a black market weapons dealer.
i wanted her to be fast, competent in combat and have some secondary skill, like hacking that could be a bit useful to the team as a whole.
as it is, i dont know what the other lads are building up, but they previously played fairly fighty characters in 3e, so i went with a rigger support character under that rulebook, but got bored waiting in the car doing aerial recon.
i started trying to get some secondary skills in hacking because i actually understand the rules for it now in 4e, but i just cant seem to make it work without ruining my combat abilities and pouring resources into lvl6 software.
as you can see, i tried to make a char that would be able to spoof, doors/guns/drones but i realised i'd totally forgot to get extra edge and need a second contact.
the only place i can really get the BP from now is raiding the hacking stuff as i'm not that good at it anyway.
can any of you guys see something obvious so that i can be passable as a 2nd hacker for the team? or shall i just dump it entirely, get the extra edge point, a new contact and pop whatever change i've got into something less obvious, like explosives/vehicle skills/armourer?

any other help/tips would be great btw, i know i need to re-write my gear a bit, think i did a few bits wrong with the rifle and armour and that i can free up cash from the software.

[Critias]

You can save a couple points dropping Pistols (and just using Automatics, with itsy bitsy machine pistols for your concealability work), if you feel desperate to shave stuff off.  Overall your build looks pretty solid, though (I'm just suggesting that because it's the one thing I really noticed).

[Scarecrow71]

One thing I noticed is that you have specializations, which are cheaper overall to purchase with Karma after the game starts.  Drop the specs for Automatics, Pistols, Computer and Hacking, and you'll save yourself some BP there.

[Medicineman]

-improved ability 4 gymnastics (.75 *way power)
Thats not quite right
since Your original Gymnastic Skill is 4 You can have an Improved Skill of 2
With a Skill of 6 It may be raised to 3 (its Maximum)
Tip:
get Improved Reflexes 2 and use the Way Discount on these

One thing I noticed is that you have specializations, which are cheaper overall to purchase with Karma after the game starts.  Drop the specs for Automatics, Pistols, Computer and Hacking, and you'll save yourself some BP there.

+1 from Me

HougH!
Medicineman

[Csjarrat]

superb, ta guys!!
d'oh, didnt even think of machine pistols lol!

[Critias]

-improved ability 4 gymnastics (.75 *way power)
Thats not quite right
since Your original Gymnastic Skill is 4 You can have an Improved Skill of 2
With a Skill of 6 It may be raised to 3 (its Maximum)
Tip:
get Improved Reflexes 2 and use the Way Discount on these

Good catch!

That's what I get, trying to read character sheets on my phone.   

[Tecumseh]

I'm not a big fan of the Wall Running power, which is terribly expensive and doesn't do as much as you might think. Right now you're rolling Strength (3) + Running (4), which will produce an average of 2 successes which means that you can run up 2 meters of wall. Not only is this decidedly underwhelming but it's also completely redundant with your Great Leap abilities. There you're rolling Agility (5) + Gymnastics (4) + Great Leap (4) + Improved Gymnastics (2) + Agility Boost (2 avg.) for a total of 15+ dice. That will produce 5 successes on average, which is equivalent of a 2.5 meter vertical jump.

Instead of those 4 ranks of Improved Gymnastics, why don't you pick up 2 ranks of Prodigious Physicality? It's the special ability for adepts of The Athlete's Way. It will add 2 dice to all of your Athletics skill tests.

Regarding Medicineman's comments, Improved Reflexes is unfortunately not eligible for a discount from The Athlete's Way. Otherwise, yes, that would be a nice, expensive power that would benefit from a discount.

Right now you're paying 25 BP to have Magic 6 instead of 5. That extra point of Magic is what's paying for Wall Running, which I hopefully demonstrated is not worth 25 BP. I would consider dropping that 6th point of Magic and turning that BP into some extra skill points. Some possibilities:

- 10 BP: Stealth 4
- 8 BP: Perception 4
- 4 BP: Hardware 1 (good for maglocks, although a higher ranking would be even better)
- 2 BP: extra nuyen for some gear, like getting that maglock passkey up to rating 4, plus a maglock sequencer, an autopicker, and a medkit at rating 6. Also, vision enhancement and audio enhancement on your contacts/glasses and earbuds, respectively, are all big winners.
- 1 BP: upgrade your contact's Connection rating to 3

Depending on the game you're playing, maybe put one of your shooty skills at 6 so that you have something to do when you're not not wall running. Per Critias' advice, you probably don't need both pistols and automatics. Pistols are definitely good for concealability if you'd prefer to take the stealth route; Automatics are good for dishing out pain. Also, you might turn some of those BP you've spent on specializations into a point in Throwing Weapons so that you can throw those grenades forward instead of backward.

Don't forget your knowledge skills!

I'm sure there's more that could be done, like maximizing the armor you're wearing, but I'll leave that for some of the others. Welcome to 4E. Have fun!

[FrowningMirror]

Synthacardium is a really good bioware augmentation. Again, you can only take Synthacardium 2 to start with if you grab the group. I might change things around just a tad to be able to use it. In addition a point of bioware can net you good attribute ratings. (2 points to muscle toner / augmentation each.)

[Csjarrat]

super, thanks for your help so far.
dropped pistols and put those points into hardware and E.warfare.
so re: sixth point of magic:
ok, so wallrunning doesnt look so hot, however it does specifically say that you can combine it with other powers, so you could run up two meters and then leap to another wall/do some crazy prince of persia moves which is pretty awesome.
the other thing i was looking at is the gliding power instead, as on paper it looks like a decent ablity to have. i suspect it is pretty GM dependent whether you get to use it or not though. running on water isnt going to help much in the barrens i would suspect?
if it is a bit sucky, then i suspect physical attribute boost (agility), or more combat sense would be better investments of the PP.
if i do drop it though, i'd want to boost my hacking abilities with the BP, so was looking at ways of doing it, and one of them was use of agents. i could realistically get a lvl4 agent to do the hacking/spoofing for me, and i'd just need to pick up the slack on a few things like E.warfare to decrypt files/etc.
is this viable?
if it is, i can drop BP from hacking and computer down to level 1, and invest those skill points in gear, stealth, perception etc.
as an aside, what level of perception is golden? as you can add to perception with tech and .25 PP, i didnt want to plow a lot of BP into it. (new build has audio enhance and visual enhance lvl3)

[Xzylvador]

<snip>'d well written advice.

+1 for good advice.

[Tecumseh]

Gliding is even more niche than wall running. There are, after all, lots of walls in Seattle. There are comparatively few bamboo forests and thin sheets of ice that need dancing across.

If you drop Magic to 5, then Gliding will let you "glide" 5 meters. Compare that to your Gymnastics dice for jumping. You can make it 5 meters (on average) from a standing jump and 10 meters with a running jump.

I don't want to disparage the flavor of the powers, which I agree are cinematic and entertaining. However they are both tremendously expensive and just don't come up in game play often enough for to justify the cost. If you are determined to have them, I would petition your GM for a steep discount. Personally, I would let a player have them for 0.25 power points each. If the player batted their eyelashes fetchingly, I'd probably offer a package deal of "buy one, get one" free.

Alternatively, consider a Parkour specialization for Gymnastics (not at chargen - buy it with karma) and see if your GM would allow wall running with that. Guinness recognizes records for vertical, unassisted wall running. The current record is 4.00 meters by a presumably un-Awakened Frenchman who also did stunts for the District 13 sequel.

As for Perception, I wouldn't skimp on it if you want to be Shadow McStealth. I would aim for Perception 4 to better see the cameras, pressure sensors, and monowire that will inevitably await you. No sense in doing all that fancy climbing, jumping, and free falling if you're going to blunder past a guard you didn't notice as soon as you're inside.

As for FrowningMirror's advice, I'm usually don't recommend cyber and bioware in adepts - mostly for flavor purposes - but you could get a lot of mileage out of 1 point of Essense. Muscle Toner, Muscle Augmentation, and a Synthcardium all at rating 2 would cost ¥50,000 and would provide the following:

Synthcardium: +2 Athletics tests (climbing / gymnastics / running / swimming)
Muscle Toner: +2 Agility tests (gymnastics / infiltration / palming / automatics / unarmed combat)
Muscle Augmentation: +2 Strength tests (climbing / running / swimming / unarmed damage)

Dropping your Improved Abilities would largely cover the lost point of Magic needed for the bioware. Again, if you want to stay purely adept then that's great - and generally the direction I tend to go - but there's no question that plugging in some bioware will add a to all of your key skills. That's +4 to all Athletics tests, +2 to your combat skills, and +2 to Infiltration and Palming. Good deal.

If you choose to go that route then you'll need to free up some nuyen. It pains me to say it but the mostly likely source of funds would be to drop The Athlete's Way. As much as I love the adept ways, none of your individual adept powers costs enough to justify spending 10BP to get a 25% discount. If you buy Magic to 5 and drop it to 4 with bioware, then you'll only have two Way discounts. Those will net you, at best, half a power point. Considering you paid 10BP for each of your other power points when you were buying Magic, spending 10BP for a Way that will save you half a power point isn't a good value. Sorry, Critias!!! (I'm sure you lobbied for more generous discounts but were shot down by the cyberzombies that be.)

[Csjarrat]

thanks mate, yeah the char has to stay adept.
i'll probably end up dropping athlete's way and gliding then tbh. i'll invest the spare pp into combat sense and improved abilities, like improved perception.
makes sense about having high perception, but i want to be able to do more than just be in the building when i get there.
is the agent program worth investing in as its cheaper than building my hacking skills?

[rasmusnicolaj]

If you don't want to be the hacker an Agent is an excellent way to go.

Rasmus