[Hoplophobia]

Just curious. How would you guys go about building a sort of smuggler/parkour expert in Shadowrun?

Any particular tips or tricks that are not quite so obvious?

Looking long and hard at making the tough decision between being an Adept, or using 'Ware, or trying to balance between the two.

It's real hard to pass up things like a Synthcardium 3. Do you think I could skate by with burning one point for 'ware, and then trying to grab things like Wall Running and Great Leap?

Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers.

[Shadowjack]

You could definitely benefit from Synthacardium, Reflex Recorder and Enhanced Articulation. I wouldn't say they're mandatory but if you want a really bloated dice pool then that's a way to get +5 Dice.

[Csjarrat]

adepts are pretty cool for that kind of thing. athletes way, wallrunning/great leap, free fall, attribute boost (strength/agility) improved ability (gymnastics), high agility, high strength + specialization of gymnastics into parkour should do you pretty well for dice pools.
it would also work well with a little splash of unarmed combat as adepts have some nice abilites (critical strike/penetrating strike/killing hands/elemental strike etc) for close quarters combat.

[emsquared]

Do be mindful of what your role will be in your party. "Parkour Master" is not a role, and smuggler isn't particularly either (not a primary role anyway), unless you're doing a pretty specialized campaign...

[Shadowjack]

Parkour Master is definitely an important role, emsquared. Specialists in this role beat others by leaps and bounds. Kidding, although it may not be a traditional role, I find characters like this can still find their niche once the game gets rolling. Smugglers can often be good at deliveries, providing the right vehicle for the job, fast getaways, or even smuggling if the GM decides to work that into a session here and there. I kind of like playing characters like this because I will often spot a hole in my teams arsenal and start to specialize to fix it. It can be a fun kind of progression.

[emsquared]

I'm not saying they're not usefull skill sets to have, but even in your example you're talking about them as a much larger skill set, I'm just saying you should also be incorporating stealth/b&e, facing, combat, piloting, etc. and probably not just trying to pump those athletics skills as high as the sky.

[nullnostalgia]

If you're going to master parkour, street samurai is a way to go. A lot of Shadowrun combat benefits from being able to  have high mobility is a great thing. Combine with good strength and sufficient climb, you can do what I do.

Which is the dynamic entry, and the rope-a-dope. Get yourself a cyberarm with a gyromount, and NEVER. STOP. RUNNING. Run all the time. Into cover, out of cover, over cover, under cover- always be moving. Always be shooting.

[Shadowjack]

I was certainly just teasing, emsquared, but I *think* you realize that I agree with your post as well. But I think he can get the athletics stuff fairly cheaply. Synthacardium is really affordable for what it provides.

[Xzylvador]

I'll agree on streetsam being great parkour athletes.
I play a character like this. Great athletic skill really works wonders with:
- Infiltration: Crawl over walls & ceilings (gecko gear/augs) to avoid sensors and stay out of sight.
- Melee Combat: Attacking from surprise rocks (see above), but even in combat to close the distance, get to cover, advantageous position or, when needed, gtfo more quickly.
- Shooting: Easily climb to a good vantage point.

[Hoplophobia]

Thanks for the pointers guys. I'm definitely investing a bit in infiltration and B&E as well as some shooty stuff. Our group is pretty low-optimization, so optimizing a parkour expert and then just sprinkling in the other stuff would make me pretty balanced with the rest of the party.

One of the problems with my previous character was that it was too optimized, way out infront of the party. My Hacker was a better street sam than our street sam, and was mowing people down, etc. So this is a bit of a tooling down, where optimizing around parkour really won't outshine the rest of the party.

[Aryeonos]

You don't need ware or magic to be good at parkour, and you definitely can get away with being good at parkour while still having a good chunk of BP to work with. Just take Running (Urban), Gymanstics (Parkour), Climbing (Freehand). and have at least 4's in agility and strength. If you took those skills at 4's with specialization that's 54 BP. Take unarmed and buy up a Martial art and invest in some maneuvers for extra action, I'd recommend ROSS and Capoera, for the bonus to knock down and called shots to disarm. Then the maneuvers kick attack and sweep, as well as riposte, watchfull guard and evasion. The rest of your BP you can spend on roll specialization and be highly maneuverable as well.

[emsquared]

... he can get the athletics stuff fairly cheaply. Synthacardium is really affordable for what it provides.

Absolutely, and I guess my thoughts were mainly aligning along an Augmented Adept route, where what you're doing with your ESS and MAG is pretty dang precious if you're trying to wring out the crunch.  So Synthcard sure, but say no to the Reflex Recorder (Athletics), Articulated Joints and NEO-Epo, and the same for some of the obvious "parkour" based Powers - like Wall Running - which can sometimes/usually be replicated by other actions and/or tools ...

Having the Influence Skill Group I think is very important for a smuggler, and stealth too, if not B&E (i.e. Hardware), then combat goes pretty easily in there, but to do all this - which is quite a lot really - you have to hold back in the non-critical places, and I guess that's why I wasn't indulging the joking - it was a serious critique.

[Shadowjack]

Fair enough It's true you don't need to go down the 'ware' route. But you also don't need to be an adept. Any of the 3 options are very viable imo. Not really debating anything, just stating my thoughts! It would be interesting to see you play a metavariant for this kind of character. There are quite a few interesting qualities and races you could choose from. Nartaki could make for some nice scenes. Climbing a wall at full speed while dual wielding pistols and things like that.

[Hoplophobia]

@Emsquared:

How would you suggest replacing things like Wall Running and such with other powers? Something like leg hydraulic jacks?

[emsquared]

How would you suggest replacing things like Wall Running and such with other powers? Something like leg hydraulic jacks?

It doesn't replicate the cool factor of course and it's probably not as fast or possibly stealthy to use, but if you think of the applications of Wall Running, it's pretty much going to come down to scaling (relatively short) surfaces - 6-7m or so, on average if you're 2m tall? - and obstacle/foe evasion (running up a wall and jumping off, say over heads or a fence or to another surface). First off, you can get a grapple gun and do the exact same climb but better (i.e. safer) and to a much higher height with a cheap Y purchase. Second, IRL I could "wall run" up a 4 meter wall myself (granted that's just getting my fingers around a 3-4 m high ledge, but still I could get up there with a simple-to-complex action after to hoist myself up, and I'm not magic or even a parkour person), throw in gecko gloves here and all bets are off as to the Power being 1 smidge better. i.e. Say you have a 5 STR, 4 Running and +3 Synthcard, that's 12 dice (average of 4 hits) for that same 4 meters on average (+2 for your height for ledge grab), that you'd be paying MAG for that you should/could probably talk your GM in to letting you do without the Power. Granted being able to run straight up in one action is faster, but the times you're actually going to need that speed (immediate foe evasion) are going to be few and far between, and therefore not worth the considerable 1 (1!!) PP investment. If you can talk your GM into knocking back it's base cost, then put it under Geas and a Way, maybe then go for it. But otherwise, it's just very low bang for very high buck IMO.

Same goes Freefall and Gliding, you can get fall arrest systems and jump greater distances than you'll ever Glide - which both should generally be perfectly valid and fine replacements in 90% of circumstances.

Since you're not a highly optimized table, the rule of cool may be worth it, but really, these Powers are just straight-up overpriced IMHO.