Thanks for the replies! I appreciate all the input.
Are the mechanics really that unforgiving? The GM was pretty clear that we would start off at the beginning of our career, after reading the corebook, I assumed that meant like... street-gang stuff, low-level courier, etc.. Not exactly making high-level corp raids, yet, right?
Yes. It is very easy to get geeked in Shadowrun. And the rules are extremely complicated by the standards of the rather extensive number of other RGP's I've played and GM'ed. It is very easy to make a character that cannot really contribute. It is also very hard to tell if you are competent at something because some dicepools are very easy to inflate (past 30 dice) and some are very hard to develop (you'll never get past the teens).
Also, take a look at the argument in this thread over Sinner + Erased. Some GM's will choose to aggravate the Shadowrun game system's problems by inflicting infinite revenge upon you for having negative qualities. Some of the stupidest conversations I've ever witnessed on this message board are about GM's screwing their players over negative qualities. It's very hard to recommend negative qualities, because we don't know your GM. He may be a sane and reasonable fellow. Or he may be an asshat that only GM's to powertrip over his players, and will screw you super hard no matter what you choose.
For what it's worth I think that not being able to safely tap your character's edge pool is ass and there is almost no circumstance under which Bad Luck isn't a horrible choice. Edge is often employed in 2 ways: (1) to save your life in a dire situation. (2) To occasional achieve good results in areas outside your character's main area of focus. Edge exists to make you more versatile, more reliable and to surmount overwhelming odds. It exists to make you have heroic moments. Does this sound like a resource you'd really want to abstain from?
Anyway I want to clarify a few things for you, OP.
(1) If you are a street sam, Initiative is your most important stat. It is very, very hard for competent shooters to miss their target in ranged combat, so Initiative determines whether you go before the bad guys riddle you and your pals with bullets. Surprise is also
devastatingly effective, and gaining surprise or avoiding it both require you succeed on opposed initiative rolls. Initiative is derived from your intuition and reaction scores, therefore you want these as high as possible.
(2) Agility is the key stat for many of your most useful abilities. It is hugely efficient for you to have a very high agility. It is still less important than initiative so long as you are still competent at combat. Obviously if you suck at fighting, it hardly matters if you go first or last.
(3) I recommended Move-by-wire 2 under the assumption that you wanted to be a Street Sam & Face. We are using the ginormous reaction bonus that MBW 2 + Reaction Enhancers + (arguably) Superthyroid gland to max out your reaction stat, while requiring the minimum investment of BP for your unaugmented reaction. This frees up points that can then be shifted to get your charisma to Elf levels of awesomeness. If you decide Charisma isn't all that important to you then maybe you can just replace MBW 2 with Wired reflexes.
(4) Automatic weapons are awesome. I don't
give a damn how real-life militaries train their troops to shoot.
That has nothing to do with Shadowrun. Being able to fire Long narrow bursts+ Short narrow bursts (with appropriate recoil compensation) in the same initiative pass is devastating. Automatic weapons can inflict huge amounts of damage and have great accuracy at range. If you want a small gun, automatics also governs Machine pistols - which are basically like regular pistols, only with better ammo capacity and superior capacity for recoil compensation because they can accept gas vent accessories. But if all you want is a good one-handed range weapon, SMG's are excellent.
(5) Pistols suck. If your only ranged weapon skill is pistols, then what is your plan when people with real weapons are shooting at you from a distance (like from the higher floors of a building)? Or an aerial drone, or a spirit with Line-of-sight powers? Pistol ranges are absolute garbage. They are a bit more concealable than say a machine pistol, but a cyberware/weapons scanners are cheap, common, and they doen't care how well concealed your pistol is. Low-tech, low resource organizations can still go with a physical pat-down search - which dramatically reduces the effectiveness of an item's concealability rating.
(6) There is no "intelligence" stat. Your character's mental acuity is best described by the average your your four mental attributes. I have recommended a VERY high charisma, a high intuition (the highest value that is practical), a very low logic and probably an average willpower. This means you have a mind that is well above average. Of course if you have an Asshat GM, all that will matter is whatever ability is lowest. I can't help you if your GM is like that. Condolences?
(7) Sinner + Erased is great if ever want to be respectable. You have all the benefits of real citizenship with the back up an AI keeping the bad stuff off your record. If your character ever aspires to leave the shadows after striking it rich, this is a very sensible combo of qualities. If you have people to impress who live outside the shadows this is a very sensible combo.
(Eight) Nearly everyone considers stuff like Form Fitting Body Armor and PPP to be discrete forms of protection, because that is the entire F-ing point of their existence.
Edit: grammer, accidental smiley face (wtf).
