[LastRose]

Hello, so my friend is starting a shadowrun campaign, and I seem to be the only one who hasn't played it a hundred times. I have thus far spent around 2-3 days trying to study the system, and I am slightly overloaded with options, and even when I limit them down I don't have the right experience with a system such as this one to narrow them down past the "okay I want this type of concept". With only a week to study, and learn a system that I have no way even touched I feel a bit lost to sea with these books. I was wondering if I could pick the minds of those here, I have seen some great ideas here, and I figure I should try asking.

Rules I have been given:

You have 400 BP. No more than half your points can be spent on Physical and Mental Attributes.

Accepted Books:

Shadowrun Core Rule Book
Runner's Companion
Street Magic
Arsenal
Augmentation

Concept:

I want to be a rigger that hacks into other machines, and takes them for a spin rather then having his own drones, rather then being tracked down by a downed drone. With how I saw Edge in the game I was thinking about maxing out edge with a human, and then working on my stats, but I'm not sure how much that will hurt me considering there are mixed feelings about Edge from useless to one of the best stats in the game.

I do understand that I'll be needing a Control Rig, and contacts, but the way the system works is vastly different then what I'm used to.
If you have any tips or suggestions for how to go along this path they would be greatly appreciated.


Edit 01: So, I came down with some base stats that I am planning on going with.

BOD: 3
AGI: 4
REA: 3
STR: 2
CHA: 3
INT: 5
LOG: 5
WIL: 3
Edge: 6

50 BP to 250,000 Nuyen.

NQ: Allergy (Common, Moderate)
        Allergy (uncommon, moderate)

From what I understand from looking at other builds, and such, the two skills I NEED is Electronic Warfare, and Hardware? I also went into hacking, engineering electrical, and mechanical, thinking that they would be used to fix up the drones.

[JustADude]

Gonna leave the Rigger stuff alone, since that's not my area of specialty.

However, I am going to say that Edge... really depends on your GM. If your GM refills it every Session, or even every Run, then you're golden. If you have to earn the points back over time... don't bother, even with Edge 3-4 you'll spend 'em faster than you earn 'em.

[LastRose]

I will continually edit this as I figure out things.

Also he'll be refilling them every few sessions, I'm guessing once a run is done.

[JustADude]

I will continually edit this as I figure out things.

Also he'll be refilling them every few sessions, I'm guessing once a run is done.

In that case, you want to have some, but don't worry about going ridiculous on it.

Now, a couple things that are general advice:

You want an odd amount of Body, because Physical Damage boxes round up. You want 3, rather than 5, since your main role should be to stay in the back where you're not likely to get shot at.

Secondly, I would really recommend dropping Strength and Reaction (again, not really top-tier important for what you're going to be doing) and soft-capping your Intuition and Logic, then buying up a point or two of Charisma. Why? Because you should be working from VR, and your Matrix Initiative uses your Commlink's Response rating, rather than your Reaction stat. Also because Charisma is used for all your social stuff.

And, on that subject, I'd recommend at least one rank of the Influence Group and Intimidate. Combined with decent Charisma, it means you're less likely to be "sweet-talked" into doing something stupid by an enemy Face.

On the "Equipment" side of things...

You want a Form Fitting Full Body Armor. It's 6/2 armor that counts as 3/1 for encumbrance, and stacks with other armor. Check with your GM, because one possible reading of how FFFBA interacts with Gel Packs is that it becomes 7/3 and still counts as 3/1 for encumbrance. Combine an Aces High jacket, or something similar, with some PPP armor to get to 6/6 encumbrance and your golden.

[LastRose]

So something more on the line of:

BOD: 3
AGI: 4
REA: 3
STR: 2
CHA: 3
INT: 5
LOG: 5
WIL: 3
Edge: 7
 (since edge doesn't count towards the physical/mental stats)

Also I'm having a hard time with skills, either I spend too much, or too less to get what I want. lol

I did place two Allergies, both moderate, common, and uncommon, so that's an extra 25 BP.

[JustADude]

So something more on the line of:

BOD: 3
AGI: 4
REA: 3
STR: 2
CHA: 3
INT: 5
LOG: 5
WIL: 3
Edge: 7
 (since edge doesn't count towards the physical/mental stats)

Also I'm having a hard time with skills, either I spend too much, or too less to get what I want. lol

I did place two Allergies, both moderate, common, and uncommon, so that's an extra 25 BP.

Stats look good. Remember, though, you pay 25 BP for the final point of Edge. You're better off just taking it at 6 and raising it the last point in play.

Take another 10 BP of Negative Qualities. you always want to have the maximum -35BP from NQs.

It also wouldn't hurt to drop to Agility 3, rather than Agility 4... but it also wouldn't hurt to keep it up there for those few times when you will need it.

[LastRose]

Thank you for the help, It seems I'm going to have to do this by hand, Chummer doesn't seem to have a lot of options.

[Katrex]

Chummer has most of them it just takes a little getting used to. And can be really tedious with having to pick out every peice of equipment  with no find function

[JustADude]

Thank you for the help, It seems I'm going to have to do this by hand, Chummer doesn't seem to have a lot of options.

Have you gone into Options and enabled all the other content?

If you don't, it just shows the Core Book stuff

Chummer has most of them it just takes a little getting used to. And can be really tedious with having to pick out every peice of equipment  with no find function

It should have a name search, IIRC.

[LastRose]

Okay I don't want to type out a whole bunch again, but if you want to look at the character with Chummer...

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7IfYmHo3wVmSWg0a3NMZjhNbEk

I put the file on google docs.

[All4BigGuns]

I will continually edit this as I figure out things.

Also he'll be refilling them every few sessions, I'm guessing once a run is done.

If it's not refilled every session, then the game is one where Edge is completely worthless except in extreme emergencies, so don't go over 1 or 2.

[LastRose]

lol Like I said, some people swear by them, some people hate them. I like the thought of having 6, if they refill every few sessions, like every 2-3 then I don't mind having them considering as a rigger I should be out of most of the fire.

[emsquared]

Rigger is not my thing either, but I will agree with what others have said in that having 6 EDG seems a little extreme if you don't get it refreshed every session. At 6 it's a central focus and probably key to the functionality of your character, and if you can't use it every session, you've been gimped - because generally everyone else can use their "focus stat" at will. IMHO those BP are better spent elsewhere, unless you have absolutely nothing else you can imagine spending points on (Posi Qualities, Contacts and of course Skills being good options).

I should add, my opinion is formed in the frame that my GM does it like yours: EDG refreshes after a "Run" has been completed (which takes 1 - 2 sessions early on, but has talked about up to 4).

[LastRose]

Well the problem is I didn't want to put contacts for one reason. I took some interesting negative traits that I thought would be fun to roleplay, amnesia, and flashbacks (uncommon). Which I don't think anyone with amnesia would have very many contacts, I might get one or two but I still have around 20 bp left over that I'm trying to figure out where to put it. I didn't use the 35 BP to make it 7, just went to 6.

Considering I get about 12-14 dice hacking with one of my drones, which I'm still trying to fully understand, got a decent car, and a personal vehicle to drive everywhere with a horseman, patched in with a rigger's cocoon.

[Smeggles]

Well the problem is I didn't want to put contacts for one reason. I took some interesting negative traits that I thought would be fun to roleplay, amnesia, and flashbacks (uncommon). Which I don't think anyone with amnesia would have very many contacts, I

Depending on your GM, your lack of contacts might not be an issue at all.  I find that GMs tend to go really easy on new players who "forget" to buy contacts    A more experienced player can often times expect their GM to shaft them repeatedly for not buying a small network of people who'll do their character favors.


About the Amnesia part - it might be fun actually if you DID have contacts who were trying to get in touch with you...but you have no idea who these people are!  THEY seem to know YOU but hell if you want to talk to them!  Just an interesting idea for you to consider if you felt that you "couldn't" have contacts because of your character's amnesia