This isn't going to be a full "Let's Build" instead, I want to talk through an idea that's been bugging me for weeks now.
When building a Shadowrun 5th Edition character you're given the option for "Alternate Gameplay" these modes, either high-power or street-level change the starting funds, and other limits for your character.
However, I was curious. If I really wanted a player to start at the bottom, and work up, what's the most restrictive set of limits I could place on a character and still have the game playable?
Why would a GM do this? Well, I wouldn't, usually. But, if I was running a group that really wanted a challenge, or I wanted to focus on a group building up their assets as a unit, and not as a group of individuals then imposing harsh starting conditions has some merit.
I've not gotten through the idea yet but I wanted to leave this here, both as a tease for my readers, and as incentive for me to chase this idea down and see where it leads!
Information for GMs, and gaming groups, targeted for Shadowrun 5th Edition.
Showing posts with label Let's Build!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Let's Build!. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Let's Build: A Rigger
I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret. I love Riggers. I rarely get to play, and most of my groups don't have a PC rigger, so it's a rare day indeed when I get to show my love for the guy in the van with the shotgun. Did you ever notice the Rigger almost always has a shotgun? Or, is it just my groups. Anyway. In honor of Gun H(e)aven 3, and my now un-closeted love of Riggers. I'm going to build a PC rigger. Normal build rules, no street level here, and we shall see how he comes out!
As you may know from my earlier Let's Build, I prefer human characters. However, I'm going to set myself a challenge with this one, and will build a Metahuman rigger. I'm also setting myself the goal of building a character that isn't going to be content with sitting in his car, and letting his drones have all the fun.
Now comes the hard choices.
I want to have a large pool of money, so my initial thought is to assign Resources to Priority A. However, I've said I'm not going to run a Human, and if I want to run a Troll, I really should make Metatype my Priority A. I think, in this case, I'm going to have to let money, and my leftover Karma keep me afloat. So, Resources gets Priority A.
With that settled, Priority B gets Attributes. As I strongly feel that your attribute scores should be as high as possible.
That leaves me C, and D. If I make C skills, then D has to be my Metatype, which in this case would mean Elf (0) Which, if I must admit, is hardly ideal. However, I don't want to have 22 skill points either.
Elf (0) it is then.
Resources: A - ¥450,000
Attributes: B - 20
Skills: C - 28/2
Metatype : D - Elf (0)
Magic: E
Attributes
Body: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Agility: 6/7 - 4 pts.
Reaction: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Strength: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Willpower: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Logic: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Intuition: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Charisma: 3/8 - 0 pts.
Edge: 1/6
I went for a more general spread, maxing out Reaction for the piloting skills, but at the same time, not leaving any real holes in terms of a weak attribute, or a low limit. The advantage of playing a non-Human character is that you don't have to spend points on the boosted attribute, to still have a solid attribute. Charisma in my case, with no additional points, is still a 3.
Qualities
As I've stated earlier I love qualities. I think it's a great way to add flavor to a character. For my Rigger, I had a few in mind. However, I have a slight issue, my Edge attribute is a 1. This, is a very bad idea. So, I'm going to plan on bumping this to a 3 with Karma. However, that means that my 25 Karma I'm given has been spoken for, so any positive qualities must have a matching negative quality to balance out the Karma.
SINner - Corporate SIN: This is a huge 25 point negative quality I take very rarely. However, I love the back story possibilities that come with it. In my case, I'm going to say it's a Mitsuhama SIN
Juryrigger: This is another favorite of mine, I love the idea that I can coax just a little more life out of scrap, and it dovetails nicely with...
Gearhead: Yep, I'm the pilot you're looking for. This is a great 11 pt. positive quality. It let's you get just a little more bang out of your equipment when you really need to. Plus, when added to the bonuses from Juryrigger, you can make a drone do magic, for 1D6 minutes, then well, it bricks itself.
This leaves me with 4 extra Karma, for Contacts.
Next, we need skills. This is always a hard part for me, as I want to take points in absolutely everything, and then have to scale back until I'm in budget. For this character, budget means 28/2. Let's start with the skill group.
For the skill group, I'm going with Engineering. This gives me Aeronautics Mechanic, Automotive Mechanic, Industrial Mechanic, and Nautical Mechanic at a rating of 2. Useful for a vehicle based character.
For the rest of my skills I've taken the following:
Skills:
Perception: 4
Gunnery: 4
Heavy Weapons: 3
Automatics: 3
Pilot Aircraft: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 5
Hardware: 2
Electronic Warfare: 2
Skill Group:
Aeronautics Mechanic 2
Automotive Mechanic 2
Industrial Mechanic 2
Nautical Mechanic 2
While I'm not going to be a rock star in combat, and I'm out of my depth in social situations, the character has a good spread of combat skills, vehicle skills, and can fix his own gear, a valuable skill set for someone who's expensive toys get shot at.
Next, I get to spend my money. This part always makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. Remember we took Resources A, so we have a whopping ¥450,000 to spend.
Let's start with the easy stuff first. Lifestyle: Low, 3 months. This takes ¥6,000 but guarantees me a safe place to sleep, and a place to park my vehicle. I'm also going to add on the Special Work Area perk, bringing the per month cost up to ¥3,000 and the total bill up to ¥9,000. For the sake of back story, I'm going to say I live in a loft over a garage.
With Lifestyle in the bag, I usually buy my armor, primary, and secondary gun. In this case, I'm going to hold off, and skip to the vehicles and drones next as they will take up a large portion of my money.
For starters, my two vehicles. One for work, the other for play.
GMC Bulldog (¥35,000)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
Suzuki Mirage (¥8,500)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
I took Gunnery, and Automatics, because I wanted to be able to un-mount the guns from my vehicle if needed, and carry them.This obviously packs more punch with machine guns, but the assault rifles are not exactly weak tea. This helps to make the character more well rounded, as well as keeping me from being tied to my vehicle. Having two weapon mounts on the Bulldog lets me un-mount one gun, while providing covering fire with the second weapon. While Ideally I'd love to have Heavy Weapon mounts, the availability is simply too high.
For the vehicles, and later the drones, and as my personal weapon I'm taking the Colt Inception from Gun H(e)aven 3. With an Accuracy of 7, and a 10P damage code, it's a rock solid assault rifle. Keeping one rifle across the board makes life easier as you can share clips, and ammunition across all your vehicles.
Colt Inception x 4 (¥9,000)
- 10 clips (¥50)
- 1000 Rounds Explosive (¥8,000)
- 1000 Rounds APDS (¥12,000)
- External Smartgun (¥800)
One thing I found when playing Shadowrun 5th Edition is that when buying restricted gear, especially ammunition, it's best to buy in bulk at character creation, as it can be a pain to source in game.
Now, drones, this is one area where we have far too few choices in the core rules. There are, in total, 11 drones in the core rules. Eleven. Some of those 11 are not restricted. The ones that are, some are well worth the money. My personal favorite is the MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone. It's highly modifiable, and that makes it ideal for Shadowrunning. On the ground, the GM-Nissan Doberman is a rock solid choice. For less offensive operations the Lockheed Optic-X2 is a great VSTOL spy drone, and it's not even restricted!
Remember, you don't have to bring every drone on every mission, and it helps to have a variety back at home, so that you can pick and choose to fit your mission profile. With that in mind, I've grabbed the following:
1 x GM-Nissan Doberman (¥5,000)
- Built in Standard Weapons Mount
2 x MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone (¥10,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian (¥21,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Steel Lynx Combat Drone (¥25,000)
- Built in Heavy Weapons Mount
For the heavy weapon mount, I'm going to pick up a really inexpensive LMG from Gun H(e)aven 3, the Krime Wave. At (¥2,000) it's an absolute steal. Also, it can handle a clip, and belt, and can switch feed sources. I'm going to add a smartlink for the following setup:
Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 500 Rounds Explosive (¥4,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)
This stable of death and destruction gives me a wide range of options for mayhem, and for a surprisingly reasonable price tag!
So far, I've spent ¥175,060 of my ¥450,000 budget.
Let's look at what else I'll need.
Ares Crusader II Smartlink (¥830) (my backup gun)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 100 Regular Rounds (¥200)
- Concealable Holster (¥150)
Actioneer Business Clothes (¥1,500)
Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (¥650)
- Helmet (¥100)
Hermes Ikon Commlink (¥3,000)
Fake SIN Rating 4 (¥10,000)
- 10 x Fake License Rating 4 (¥8,000)
The point of the fake SIN, and licenses, is that it gives me a cover story, to help put a line of defense between myself, and the corporate SIN I bought as a quality. Plus, it gives me the option to carry some of my restricted gear, including the drones, and the guns on them, legally. Always a good idea.
Aircraft Mechanic Shop (¥5,000)
Ground Vehicle Shop (¥5,000)
Now comes the other expensive part of the package, Cyberware. First on the list has to be the Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence) and the Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2) in a set of natural Cybereyes Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity) in addition, I'm going to pick up Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2) and Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2) Here's the cyberware in list form:
Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence)
Cybereyes - Natural Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity)
- Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2)
- Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2)
- Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2)
So far, I've spent ¥325,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.
One piece of gear that I've not yet bought is a Rigger Command Console, mostly because the table for them isn't in the gear section. With that in mind, I want to pick up the most expensive one I can afford. With an Availability of 12, I can get the Proteus Poseidon. Device rating 5, Data Processing 5, and Firewall 6. For the low, low, price of ¥68,000
On top of that, I need to pick up a few autosofts, and cyber programs. Autosofts, are programs that run on drones, enhancing their abilities. The cost for these isn't listed in the first printing of the core rules, but has been released in the errata as follows:
Autosoft
Availability: Rating * 2
Cost: Rating * ¥500
Note: Don't take the above as gospel, always check your rule book, and any published errata.
I have the following drones:
GM-Nissan Doberman, MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone, Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian and a Steel Lynx Combat Drone so any model specific autosofts will need to be bought for the different drone models. This is another reason to only carry a small number of models.
I'm looking to buy the following list of Autosofts:
Clearsight 6 (¥3,000)
Electronic Warfare 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
That's ¥42,000 worth of software.
So far, I've spent ¥435,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.
I also want Encryption, Signal Scrub, Toolbox, Virtual Machine, Armor, Biofeedback Filter, Guard, Shell, and Sneak cyberprograms. That's ¥250 * 9 = ¥2,250 I'm also going to pick up all the Common cyber programs, for another ¥560.
This is the point that I really like, I've bought all the necessities, now I can buy things that are just silly. That is, bits of gear, or cyberware that I want, but don't consider critical. Unfortunately, I'm sitting on a measly ¥12,190. I'm going to spend that on a few extra hard to find bits of equipment.
- Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)
This brings me down to ¥446,010 spent, giving me ¥3,390 + (3D6 * ¥60) to start the game with.
All that's left now, is to assign contacts, and spend my karma. Remember, I'm boosting Edge to 3, which leaves me 4 karma to add to my contacts. For Rigger contacts, I like to keep it simple.
I start with Charisma x 3 in free Karma, that's 9 points. With the 4 leftover Karma I have from Qualities, I can spend 13 karma on Contacts. Some people like to have a few very close contacts, while I find that can be helpful, I like to have a larger number of contacts. However, there's not much I can do with only 13 points.
Fixer: 2/2
Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk: 4/1
Parts Store Owner: 1/3
I grab the usual Fixer, and a Scrapyard owner, think your local Autozone, good for getting parts for the legal vehicles in my fleet. The Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk is your average middle-management drone, left over from my corp days. He can possibly provide me with sensitive parts, and intel, from within Mitsuhama. Not the best contact, but flavorful, and could open other options.
Final Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Willpower: 3
Logic: 5
Intuition: 3
Charisma: 3
Edge: 3
Initiative: 8 + 1D6
Essence: 3
Limits
Mental Limit: 6
Physical Limit: 5
Social Limit: 4
There you have it! Feel free to comment if you think I've gone off the deep end, or more likely if my math is wrong!
As you may know from my earlier Let's Build, I prefer human characters. However, I'm going to set myself a challenge with this one, and will build a Metahuman rigger. I'm also setting myself the goal of building a character that isn't going to be content with sitting in his car, and letting his drones have all the fun.
Now comes the hard choices.
I want to have a large pool of money, so my initial thought is to assign Resources to Priority A. However, I've said I'm not going to run a Human, and if I want to run a Troll, I really should make Metatype my Priority A. I think, in this case, I'm going to have to let money, and my leftover Karma keep me afloat. So, Resources gets Priority A.
With that settled, Priority B gets Attributes. As I strongly feel that your attribute scores should be as high as possible.
That leaves me C, and D. If I make C skills, then D has to be my Metatype, which in this case would mean Elf (0) Which, if I must admit, is hardly ideal. However, I don't want to have 22 skill points either.
Elf (0) it is then.
Resources: A - ¥450,000
Attributes: B - 20
Skills: C - 28/2
Metatype : D - Elf (0)
Magic: E
Attributes
Body: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Agility: 6/7 - 4 pts.
Reaction: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Strength: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Willpower: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Logic: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Intuition: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Charisma: 3/8 - 0 pts.
Edge: 1/6
I went for a more general spread, maxing out Reaction for the piloting skills, but at the same time, not leaving any real holes in terms of a weak attribute, or a low limit. The advantage of playing a non-Human character is that you don't have to spend points on the boosted attribute, to still have a solid attribute. Charisma in my case, with no additional points, is still a 3.
Qualities
As I've stated earlier I love qualities. I think it's a great way to add flavor to a character. For my Rigger, I had a few in mind. However, I have a slight issue, my Edge attribute is a 1. This, is a very bad idea. So, I'm going to plan on bumping this to a 3 with Karma. However, that means that my 25 Karma I'm given has been spoken for, so any positive qualities must have a matching negative quality to balance out the Karma.
SINner - Corporate SIN: This is a huge 25 point negative quality I take very rarely. However, I love the back story possibilities that come with it. In my case, I'm going to say it's a Mitsuhama SIN
Juryrigger: This is another favorite of mine, I love the idea that I can coax just a little more life out of scrap, and it dovetails nicely with...
Gearhead: Yep, I'm the pilot you're looking for. This is a great 11 pt. positive quality. It let's you get just a little more bang out of your equipment when you really need to. Plus, when added to the bonuses from Juryrigger, you can make a drone do magic, for 1D6 minutes, then well, it bricks itself.
This leaves me with 4 extra Karma, for Contacts.
Next, we need skills. This is always a hard part for me, as I want to take points in absolutely everything, and then have to scale back until I'm in budget. For this character, budget means 28/2. Let's start with the skill group.
For the skill group, I'm going with Engineering. This gives me Aeronautics Mechanic, Automotive Mechanic, Industrial Mechanic, and Nautical Mechanic at a rating of 2. Useful for a vehicle based character.
For the rest of my skills I've taken the following:
Skills:
Perception: 4
Gunnery: 4
Heavy Weapons: 3
Automatics: 3
Pilot Aircraft: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 5
Hardware: 2
Electronic Warfare: 2
Skill Group:
Aeronautics Mechanic 2
Automotive Mechanic 2
Industrial Mechanic 2
Nautical Mechanic 2
While I'm not going to be a rock star in combat, and I'm out of my depth in social situations, the character has a good spread of combat skills, vehicle skills, and can fix his own gear, a valuable skill set for someone who's expensive toys get shot at.
Next, I get to spend my money. This part always makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. Remember we took Resources A, so we have a whopping ¥450,000 to spend.
Let's start with the easy stuff first. Lifestyle: Low, 3 months. This takes ¥6,000 but guarantees me a safe place to sleep, and a place to park my vehicle. I'm also going to add on the Special Work Area perk, bringing the per month cost up to ¥3,000 and the total bill up to ¥9,000. For the sake of back story, I'm going to say I live in a loft over a garage.
With Lifestyle in the bag, I usually buy my armor, primary, and secondary gun. In this case, I'm going to hold off, and skip to the vehicles and drones next as they will take up a large portion of my money.
For starters, my two vehicles. One for work, the other for play.
GMC Bulldog (¥35,000)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
Suzuki Mirage (¥8,500)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
I took Gunnery, and Automatics, because I wanted to be able to un-mount the guns from my vehicle if needed, and carry them.This obviously packs more punch with machine guns, but the assault rifles are not exactly weak tea. This helps to make the character more well rounded, as well as keeping me from being tied to my vehicle. Having two weapon mounts on the Bulldog lets me un-mount one gun, while providing covering fire with the second weapon. While Ideally I'd love to have Heavy Weapon mounts, the availability is simply too high.
For the vehicles, and later the drones, and as my personal weapon I'm taking the Colt Inception from Gun H(e)aven 3. With an Accuracy of 7, and a 10P damage code, it's a rock solid assault rifle. Keeping one rifle across the board makes life easier as you can share clips, and ammunition across all your vehicles.
Colt Inception x 4 (¥9,000)
- 10 clips (¥50)
- 1000 Rounds Explosive (¥8,000)
- 1000 Rounds APDS (¥12,000)
- External Smartgun (¥800)
One thing I found when playing Shadowrun 5th Edition is that when buying restricted gear, especially ammunition, it's best to buy in bulk at character creation, as it can be a pain to source in game.
Now, drones, this is one area where we have far too few choices in the core rules. There are, in total, 11 drones in the core rules. Eleven. Some of those 11 are not restricted. The ones that are, some are well worth the money. My personal favorite is the MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone. It's highly modifiable, and that makes it ideal for Shadowrunning. On the ground, the GM-Nissan Doberman is a rock solid choice. For less offensive operations the Lockheed Optic-X2 is a great VSTOL spy drone, and it's not even restricted!
Remember, you don't have to bring every drone on every mission, and it helps to have a variety back at home, so that you can pick and choose to fit your mission profile. With that in mind, I've grabbed the following:
1 x GM-Nissan Doberman (¥5,000)
- Built in Standard Weapons Mount
2 x MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone (¥10,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian (¥21,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Steel Lynx Combat Drone (¥25,000)
- Built in Heavy Weapons Mount
For the heavy weapon mount, I'm going to pick up a really inexpensive LMG from Gun H(e)aven 3, the Krime Wave. At (¥2,000) it's an absolute steal. Also, it can handle a clip, and belt, and can switch feed sources. I'm going to add a smartlink for the following setup:
Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 500 Rounds Explosive (¥4,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)
This stable of death and destruction gives me a wide range of options for mayhem, and for a surprisingly reasonable price tag!
So far, I've spent ¥175,060 of my ¥450,000 budget.
Let's look at what else I'll need.
Ares Crusader II Smartlink (¥830) (my backup gun)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 100 Regular Rounds (¥200)
- Concealable Holster (¥150)
Actioneer Business Clothes (¥1,500)
Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (¥650)
- Helmet (¥100)
Hermes Ikon Commlink (¥3,000)
Fake SIN Rating 4 (¥10,000)
- 10 x Fake License Rating 4 (¥8,000)
The point of the fake SIN, and licenses, is that it gives me a cover story, to help put a line of defense between myself, and the corporate SIN I bought as a quality. Plus, it gives me the option to carry some of my restricted gear, including the drones, and the guns on them, legally. Always a good idea.
Aircraft Mechanic Shop (¥5,000)
Ground Vehicle Shop (¥5,000)
Now comes the other expensive part of the package, Cyberware. First on the list has to be the Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence) and the Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2) in a set of natural Cybereyes Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity) in addition, I'm going to pick up Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2) and Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2) Here's the cyberware in list form:
Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence)
Cybereyes - Natural Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity)
- Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2)
- Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2)
- Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2)
So far, I've spent ¥325,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.
One piece of gear that I've not yet bought is a Rigger Command Console, mostly because the table for them isn't in the gear section. With that in mind, I want to pick up the most expensive one I can afford. With an Availability of 12, I can get the Proteus Poseidon. Device rating 5, Data Processing 5, and Firewall 6. For the low, low, price of ¥68,000
On top of that, I need to pick up a few autosofts, and cyber programs. Autosofts, are programs that run on drones, enhancing their abilities. The cost for these isn't listed in the first printing of the core rules, but has been released in the errata as follows:
Autosoft
Availability: Rating * 2
Cost: Rating * ¥500
Note: Don't take the above as gospel, always check your rule book, and any published errata.
I have the following drones:
GM-Nissan Doberman, MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone, Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian and a Steel Lynx Combat Drone so any model specific autosofts will need to be bought for the different drone models. This is another reason to only carry a small number of models.
I'm looking to buy the following list of Autosofts:
Clearsight 6 (¥3,000)
Electronic Warfare 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
That's ¥42,000 worth of software.
So far, I've spent ¥435,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.
I also want Encryption, Signal Scrub, Toolbox, Virtual Machine, Armor, Biofeedback Filter, Guard, Shell, and Sneak cyberprograms. That's ¥250 * 9 = ¥2,250 I'm also going to pick up all the Common cyber programs, for another ¥560.
This is the point that I really like, I've bought all the necessities, now I can buy things that are just silly. That is, bits of gear, or cyberware that I want, but don't consider critical. Unfortunately, I'm sitting on a measly ¥12,190. I'm going to spend that on a few extra hard to find bits of equipment.
- Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)
This brings me down to ¥446,010 spent, giving me ¥3,390 + (3D6 * ¥60) to start the game with.
All that's left now, is to assign contacts, and spend my karma. Remember, I'm boosting Edge to 3, which leaves me 4 karma to add to my contacts. For Rigger contacts, I like to keep it simple.
I start with Charisma x 3 in free Karma, that's 9 points. With the 4 leftover Karma I have from Qualities, I can spend 13 karma on Contacts. Some people like to have a few very close contacts, while I find that can be helpful, I like to have a larger number of contacts. However, there's not much I can do with only 13 points.
Fixer: 2/2
Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk: 4/1
Parts Store Owner: 1/3
I grab the usual Fixer, and a Scrapyard owner, think your local Autozone, good for getting parts for the legal vehicles in my fleet. The Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk is your average middle-management drone, left over from my corp days. He can possibly provide me with sensitive parts, and intel, from within Mitsuhama. Not the best contact, but flavorful, and could open other options.
Final Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Willpower: 3
Logic: 5
Intuition: 3
Charisma: 3
Edge: 3
Initiative: 8 + 1D6
Essence: 3
Limits
Mental Limit: 6
Physical Limit: 5
Social Limit: 4
There you have it! Feel free to comment if you think I've gone off the deep end, or more likely if my math is wrong!
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Let's Build: A Decker
The "Let's Build" segment will be a semi-regular part of this blog. In it I'll go through building a character from the ground up including my thoughts behind the choices I've made, and the role I see the character playing in-game. I plan to loosely divide these characters into "competitive" builds, and "flavor" builds. Competitive Runners are exactly what they say on the tin, these guys hold to an archetype, and are good at what they do. They are built to be, if not the best, then close to the best they can be. Flavor builds aren't bad, per say, but I'll have made choices to enhance the flavor, or in-game experience of the player, over simply building the best statline I can.
For this episode, I give you a Street Level Decker. One of the new-ish Mechanics in 5th Edition is the ability to tailor game play out of the box for Street, Standard, or Prime levels of experience. While rules for street level, and higher power runners have existed in 3rd, and 4th, this is the first time that I know of where the rules have been presented as part of the core book, and as part of core character generation.
Onto the build!
One of the first things to note are the changes that a Street Level character comes with, first, is a lower nuyen value, an A, for example nets you a measly ¥75,000, as opposed to the normal ¥450,000, starting karma drops to 13, with a max of 26, gear ratings max out at 4, and availability is limited to 10 or less. Also, painfully in this case, I can convert no more than 5 karma into extra nuyen. Ouch.
Here's where I put my build choices.
A - Resources (¥75,000): This was a no-brainer for me, Cyberdecks are incredibly expensive, and even with a resource rating of A, I'm going to be hard pressed to buy a deck, and the gear and programs I need to run it, without skirting dangerously close to running in my skivvies, and living behind the local Stuffer Shack. With that in mind, for a Decker, especially at Street Level, A is the only choice here.
B - Attributes (20): This, again, is a fairly easy choice. A reader commented on my last post and pointed out the skill/attribute disparity, that a high skill cannot overcome a poor attribute. With that in mind, I generally prioritize attributes over skills. While I don't necessarily agree with the mechanic, it's the game we play in, and that drives Attributes into the B slot for me.
One of the sad things that I encounter when building a gear focused character is that it's very hard to build the character as anything other then a Human, or Elf. I have fold memories of a Troll Decker in 3rd Edition, and I hope with a Standard or Prime build, that I'd be able to push Resources down a peg, and still come out ok. But, that's for another day, and another post.
C - Skills (28/2): This is lower then I would like it, and means we're going to have to make some hard decisions when it comes to skills. However, with A, and B, solidly spoken for there's not much else to do. You could take Metatype as your C here, and go with a Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Ork, but I don't see much value, especially in the Ork, as you receive 0 extra attribute points. This means raising Edge with karma, an expensive prospect indeed, given how much you already need to do with karma at a Street level build.
D - Metatype (Human (3)): You could go with Elf here, but I love a high Edge attribute, so I went with the Human. Especially as the Elf's natural bump to Agility, and Charisma doesn't help a Decker much, at least in my opinion.
E - Magic/Resonance: That's a big fat 0 there boys and girls.
Attributes: In Shadowrun, you have 11 attributes. I've filled in my Decker's attributes below, and will go over some of them below.
Body: 3 (+2)
Agility: 3 (+2)
Reaction: 4 (+2)
Strength: 2 (+1)
Willpower: 6 (+5)
Logic: 5 (+4)
Intuition: 3 (+2)
Charisma: 2 (+2)
Edge: 5 (+3, special)
Essence: 6
Initiative: 7 + 1D6
Just for the sake of completeness, here's my Limits, at this point.
Mental: 7
Physical: 4
Social: 6
I tried to go for a balance across the board, taking a hit on Strength, and Charisma, both of which tugged at my limits a little. However, my Mental limit, which is the key one for a lot of tests a Decker makes, is 7, which is rock-solid in my mind. One advantage of playing a Human, aside from being able to take a D or E in Metatype is that your Edge starts at 2. Anyone who doesn't value a high Edge attribute hasn't played enough Shadowrun. Also, I chose to drop Strength, in favor of Reaction. This was deliberate for several reasons. First, my Physical limit is still high enough that I can do most physical tasks, and as long as I have a decent skill I should be ok. Reaction, given that it is used for Initiative, and ranged combat, is more important to me then Strength, which would be used for more up close and personal combat.
Before we talk Skills, I want to touch on another Shadowrun mechanic that I absolutely love, Qualities. Qualities work to customize a character so that each Runner can be different, even if they perform the same job in a team. For my Decker, I like to look at a few positive, and negative, qualities.
Codeslinger (10 Karma) is a must-have for any serious Decker. This positive quality gives you +2 dice to any one Matrix action. For me, that's either Brute Force, or Hack on the Fly. For this Decker, I went with Hack on the Fly. (Karma remaining, 3)
Quick Healer (3 Karma) is another great positive quality. While I'm going to pass on it for today, I find that it can really help when your character's Body attribute isn't quite what you'd like it to be, and for 3 Karma, it's a steal.
Negative qualities can get out of hand, and I appreciate that there's a built in maximum in 5th Edition, it keeps players from loading on odd allergies, and strange addictions, for a few more Karma. In our case, as a Street Level character, we're limited to a max of 26 Karma. I took this to mean base + 13. As always, feel free to correct me in the comments if you feel otherwise. Citing page numbers is appreciated.
The only Negative Quality I regularly take is SINner, I like existing. I know it has drawbacks, but I find that the knowledge that I'm a citizen makes a lot of decisions easier. I usually carry a backup SIN, for illegal things, but my lifestyle, permits, gun, commlink, etc. are all registered to the legit SIN. As a GM, nothing makes me happier then a player with no legitimate SIN, and a low-rating fake. The police like it too.
National SIN (+5 Karma) This is the lowest grade SIN, and I generally make my characters a UCAS citizen, keeps things nice and tidy. (Karma remaining, 8)
Remember, I'm going to use the Karma I have for more nuyen later, so I want to have some leftover.
Skills! If you remember from up above I took skills at C, this gives me 28 skill points, and 2 points for skill groups. This is a good point to touch on another of my favorite additions to 5th Edition, the separation of skill points, and skill groups, at character creation. Also, the fact that you can break apart, and re-assemble skill groups over the course of game play adds a layer of extra customization that really works for me.
Let's start by assigning my two Skill Group points. Skill groups are a great way to get a lot of bang for your buck, though with only two points my bang is going to come out as more of a whimper. Oh well. First, I'm going to a take a point in the Athletics group. This is something I always suggest players do, unless they plan to build a physically minded character. The one point in Gymnastics, Running, and Swimming save you from defaulting on a lot of tests. Given my low Strength attribute, defaulting could be catastrophic and leave me hanging, possible literally, at the end of my rope at the worst possible moment. For the other point, I have a number of options. Stealth could be helpful, as could Acting, or Influence. Given that I'm looking to build a competitive Runner, I'm going to take Influence, also at 1. This helps offset the low Charisma, and will give me the ability to work a bit in social situations, without defaulting.
Influence Group: Etiquette, Leadership, Negotiation (1)
Athletics Group: Gymnastics, Running, Swimming (1)
For my 28 skill points, I'm taking the following:
Hacking: 6 - As a Decker, this is my bread and butter.
Cybercombat: 4
Electronic Warfare: 4
Pistols: 4 - This gives me some offensive firepower, alternatively you can take Longarms, and carry a sawed-off shotgun, which is always a nice touch if I do say so myself.
Computer: 3
Software: 3
Hardware: 1
Perception: 3
My biggest piece of advice, when it comes to skills, is don't be afraid to take a skill at a rating of 1, or 2. It won't get you far, but it's head and shoulders better than defaulting. One skill I would have liked to have higher is Hardware, given that I'll be repairing a fair amount of my own gear, and my team's gear, I'd like to have a few more dice here. This is a good place to spend some in-game Karma.
Knowledge, and Language skills I leave to your imagination, for competitive characters I tend to take business related skills, clubs, bars, gang identification, police/corporate policy and the like. For flavorful characters, it's a wide open world, and you take whatever it is that makes you smile.
Money! It's time to spend that big pile of green we burned an A on up above, a big, fat, stack of ¥75,000! I'm not going to go into exact detail, instead I'm going to hit the highlights that I go over when buying gear for a competitive Street Level character. To begin, the Cyberdeck. My view here, as with any character is, if it's your main piece of gear, get the best you can. In this case, that's the Microdeck Summit, at ¥58,000. Our big pile of money just got a lot smaller. Next, programs. Common programs will set you back ¥80/per, and there's 7 of them, get them all, that's another ¥560. Now, the fun stuff, the illegal hacking programs. These bad boys will set you back ¥250/per, and with money already looking tight we can't buy everything we may want, or need. Here's the selection I recommend.
Armor: +2 Firewall, a lifesaver.
Biofeedback Filter: +2 dice to resist Biofeedback damage, another lifesaver.
Exploit: +2 to Sleaze when Hacking on the Fly, worth every penny.
Sneak: +1 to Sleaze. Alternately, to run a heavy-handed Decker swap Brute Force in with Codeslinger above, and take Decryption here.
Shell: Additional +1 dice for damage resistance, and Biofeedback. Works great with Armor or Biofeedback Filter above, and the Virtual Machine common program.
Five programs, ¥250/per, that's another ¥1,250 spent. A quick tally tells us we've used ¥59,810 of our starting funds. We still need a lot of gear to survive even a basic run, and funds are going to get tight.
Next, I worry about a gun, clothes, and a place to sleep.
The Gun, for this character I'm grabbing two pistols, with ammunition. First, is a Streetline Special (¥120) with 20 rounds of regular ammunition (¥10 for the clips, ¥40 for the rounds) this is my daily carry piece, I'll pick up a concealed holster (¥150) to go with it making sure anyone trying to spot my piece will have to roll really well. As a working gun, I'd usually go for the Ares Predator V (¥725), and as I'm going to have a datajack (¥1,000), and SIM module (in my cyberdeck), there's no need to deviate here. I'll pick up 20 rounds of ammunition to go with it as a starting point as well.
For armor, I usually start, and stop, with a Lined Coat. I simply love it, and even though it's a bit steep at ¥900, I think it's worth the money.
Lifestyle, as much as I'd love to start with Middle, a few months of Low is the best I can afford right now, that'll set me back another ¥4,000. With that, we've now spent ¥66,805! At this point we have the bare minimum covered, and it's as far as I'll take this build. Good things to pick up at this point include a vehicle, B&E gear, a Hardware Kit, and a second SIN. Given that you have a SIN might as well grab permits for your guns, as well as a second lined coat, or armored jacket. A backup,backup, gun isn't a bad idea either. Don't forget that once you reach the bottom of the barrel you can keep ¥5,000 nuyen back, for the start of the game. While most characters won't have that extra, it's certainly not a bad idea to line your pocket, even a little. I've also had players pick up a random assortment of higher availability gear, that they don't want to bother finding in game, explosive rounds are always popular, though how you fit them in a hold-out I'll never know.
I hope this has been informative, and I'd appreciate feedback in the comments. I'm going to be away from the net for a week, but when I return look for a post on Riggers, and a Let's Build post, most likely for a colorful Face character.
For this episode, I give you a Street Level Decker. One of the new-ish Mechanics in 5th Edition is the ability to tailor game play out of the box for Street, Standard, or Prime levels of experience. While rules for street level, and higher power runners have existed in 3rd, and 4th, this is the first time that I know of where the rules have been presented as part of the core book, and as part of core character generation.
Onto the build!
One of the first things to note are the changes that a Street Level character comes with, first, is a lower nuyen value, an A, for example nets you a measly ¥75,000, as opposed to the normal ¥450,000, starting karma drops to 13, with a max of 26, gear ratings max out at 4, and availability is limited to 10 or less. Also, painfully in this case, I can convert no more than 5 karma into extra nuyen. Ouch.
Here's where I put my build choices.
A - Resources (¥75,000): This was a no-brainer for me, Cyberdecks are incredibly expensive, and even with a resource rating of A, I'm going to be hard pressed to buy a deck, and the gear and programs I need to run it, without skirting dangerously close to running in my skivvies, and living behind the local Stuffer Shack. With that in mind, for a Decker, especially at Street Level, A is the only choice here.
B - Attributes (20): This, again, is a fairly easy choice. A reader commented on my last post and pointed out the skill/attribute disparity, that a high skill cannot overcome a poor attribute. With that in mind, I generally prioritize attributes over skills. While I don't necessarily agree with the mechanic, it's the game we play in, and that drives Attributes into the B slot for me.
One of the sad things that I encounter when building a gear focused character is that it's very hard to build the character as anything other then a Human, or Elf. I have fold memories of a Troll Decker in 3rd Edition, and I hope with a Standard or Prime build, that I'd be able to push Resources down a peg, and still come out ok. But, that's for another day, and another post.
C - Skills (28/2): This is lower then I would like it, and means we're going to have to make some hard decisions when it comes to skills. However, with A, and B, solidly spoken for there's not much else to do. You could take Metatype as your C here, and go with a Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Ork, but I don't see much value, especially in the Ork, as you receive 0 extra attribute points. This means raising Edge with karma, an expensive prospect indeed, given how much you already need to do with karma at a Street level build.
D - Metatype (Human (3)): You could go with Elf here, but I love a high Edge attribute, so I went with the Human. Especially as the Elf's natural bump to Agility, and Charisma doesn't help a Decker much, at least in my opinion.
E - Magic/Resonance: That's a big fat 0 there boys and girls.
Attributes: In Shadowrun, you have 11 attributes. I've filled in my Decker's attributes below, and will go over some of them below.
Body: 3 (+2)
Agility: 3 (+2)
Reaction: 4 (+2)
Strength: 2 (+1)
Willpower: 6 (+5)
Logic: 5 (+4)
Intuition: 3 (+2)
Charisma: 2 (+2)
Edge: 5 (+3, special)
Essence: 6
Initiative: 7 + 1D6
Just for the sake of completeness, here's my Limits, at this point.
Mental: 7
Physical: 4
Social: 6
I tried to go for a balance across the board, taking a hit on Strength, and Charisma, both of which tugged at my limits a little. However, my Mental limit, which is the key one for a lot of tests a Decker makes, is 7, which is rock-solid in my mind. One advantage of playing a Human, aside from being able to take a D or E in Metatype is that your Edge starts at 2. Anyone who doesn't value a high Edge attribute hasn't played enough Shadowrun. Also, I chose to drop Strength, in favor of Reaction. This was deliberate for several reasons. First, my Physical limit is still high enough that I can do most physical tasks, and as long as I have a decent skill I should be ok. Reaction, given that it is used for Initiative, and ranged combat, is more important to me then Strength, which would be used for more up close and personal combat.
Before we talk Skills, I want to touch on another Shadowrun mechanic that I absolutely love, Qualities. Qualities work to customize a character so that each Runner can be different, even if they perform the same job in a team. For my Decker, I like to look at a few positive, and negative, qualities.
Codeslinger (10 Karma) is a must-have for any serious Decker. This positive quality gives you +2 dice to any one Matrix action. For me, that's either Brute Force, or Hack on the Fly. For this Decker, I went with Hack on the Fly. (Karma remaining, 3)
Quick Healer (3 Karma) is another great positive quality. While I'm going to pass on it for today, I find that it can really help when your character's Body attribute isn't quite what you'd like it to be, and for 3 Karma, it's a steal.
Negative qualities can get out of hand, and I appreciate that there's a built in maximum in 5th Edition, it keeps players from loading on odd allergies, and strange addictions, for a few more Karma. In our case, as a Street Level character, we're limited to a max of 26 Karma. I took this to mean base + 13. As always, feel free to correct me in the comments if you feel otherwise. Citing page numbers is appreciated.
The only Negative Quality I regularly take is SINner, I like existing. I know it has drawbacks, but I find that the knowledge that I'm a citizen makes a lot of decisions easier. I usually carry a backup SIN, for illegal things, but my lifestyle, permits, gun, commlink, etc. are all registered to the legit SIN. As a GM, nothing makes me happier then a player with no legitimate SIN, and a low-rating fake. The police like it too.
National SIN (+5 Karma) This is the lowest grade SIN, and I generally make my characters a UCAS citizen, keeps things nice and tidy. (Karma remaining, 8)
Remember, I'm going to use the Karma I have for more nuyen later, so I want to have some leftover.
Skills! If you remember from up above I took skills at C, this gives me 28 skill points, and 2 points for skill groups. This is a good point to touch on another of my favorite additions to 5th Edition, the separation of skill points, and skill groups, at character creation. Also, the fact that you can break apart, and re-assemble skill groups over the course of game play adds a layer of extra customization that really works for me.
Let's start by assigning my two Skill Group points. Skill groups are a great way to get a lot of bang for your buck, though with only two points my bang is going to come out as more of a whimper. Oh well. First, I'm going to a take a point in the Athletics group. This is something I always suggest players do, unless they plan to build a physically minded character. The one point in Gymnastics, Running, and Swimming save you from defaulting on a lot of tests. Given my low Strength attribute, defaulting could be catastrophic and leave me hanging, possible literally, at the end of my rope at the worst possible moment. For the other point, I have a number of options. Stealth could be helpful, as could Acting, or Influence. Given that I'm looking to build a competitive Runner, I'm going to take Influence, also at 1. This helps offset the low Charisma, and will give me the ability to work a bit in social situations, without defaulting.
Influence Group: Etiquette, Leadership, Negotiation (1)
Athletics Group: Gymnastics, Running, Swimming (1)
For my 28 skill points, I'm taking the following:
Hacking: 6 - As a Decker, this is my bread and butter.
Cybercombat: 4
Electronic Warfare: 4
Pistols: 4 - This gives me some offensive firepower, alternatively you can take Longarms, and carry a sawed-off shotgun, which is always a nice touch if I do say so myself.
Computer: 3
Software: 3
Hardware: 1
Perception: 3
My biggest piece of advice, when it comes to skills, is don't be afraid to take a skill at a rating of 1, or 2. It won't get you far, but it's head and shoulders better than defaulting. One skill I would have liked to have higher is Hardware, given that I'll be repairing a fair amount of my own gear, and my team's gear, I'd like to have a few more dice here. This is a good place to spend some in-game Karma.
Knowledge, and Language skills I leave to your imagination, for competitive characters I tend to take business related skills, clubs, bars, gang identification, police/corporate policy and the like. For flavorful characters, it's a wide open world, and you take whatever it is that makes you smile.
Money! It's time to spend that big pile of green we burned an A on up above, a big, fat, stack of ¥75,000! I'm not going to go into exact detail, instead I'm going to hit the highlights that I go over when buying gear for a competitive Street Level character. To begin, the Cyberdeck. My view here, as with any character is, if it's your main piece of gear, get the best you can. In this case, that's the Microdeck Summit, at ¥58,000. Our big pile of money just got a lot smaller. Next, programs. Common programs will set you back ¥80/per, and there's 7 of them, get them all, that's another ¥560. Now, the fun stuff, the illegal hacking programs. These bad boys will set you back ¥250/per, and with money already looking tight we can't buy everything we may want, or need. Here's the selection I recommend.
Armor: +2 Firewall, a lifesaver.
Biofeedback Filter: +2 dice to resist Biofeedback damage, another lifesaver.
Exploit: +2 to Sleaze when Hacking on the Fly, worth every penny.
Sneak: +1 to Sleaze. Alternately, to run a heavy-handed Decker swap Brute Force in with Codeslinger above, and take Decryption here.
Shell: Additional +1 dice for damage resistance, and Biofeedback. Works great with Armor or Biofeedback Filter above, and the Virtual Machine common program.
Five programs, ¥250/per, that's another ¥1,250 spent. A quick tally tells us we've used ¥59,810 of our starting funds. We still need a lot of gear to survive even a basic run, and funds are going to get tight.
Next, I worry about a gun, clothes, and a place to sleep.
The Gun, for this character I'm grabbing two pistols, with ammunition. First, is a Streetline Special (¥120) with 20 rounds of regular ammunition (¥10 for the clips, ¥40 for the rounds) this is my daily carry piece, I'll pick up a concealed holster (¥150) to go with it making sure anyone trying to spot my piece will have to roll really well. As a working gun, I'd usually go for the Ares Predator V (¥725), and as I'm going to have a datajack (¥1,000), and SIM module (in my cyberdeck), there's no need to deviate here. I'll pick up 20 rounds of ammunition to go with it as a starting point as well.
For armor, I usually start, and stop, with a Lined Coat. I simply love it, and even though it's a bit steep at ¥900, I think it's worth the money.
Lifestyle, as much as I'd love to start with Middle, a few months of Low is the best I can afford right now, that'll set me back another ¥4,000. With that, we've now spent ¥66,805! At this point we have the bare minimum covered, and it's as far as I'll take this build. Good things to pick up at this point include a vehicle, B&E gear, a Hardware Kit, and a second SIN. Given that you have a SIN might as well grab permits for your guns, as well as a second lined coat, or armored jacket. A backup,backup, gun isn't a bad idea either. Don't forget that once you reach the bottom of the barrel you can keep ¥5,000 nuyen back, for the start of the game. While most characters won't have that extra, it's certainly not a bad idea to line your pocket, even a little. I've also had players pick up a random assortment of higher availability gear, that they don't want to bother finding in game, explosive rounds are always popular, though how you fit them in a hold-out I'll never know.
I hope this has been informative, and I'd appreciate feedback in the comments. I'm going to be away from the net for a week, but when I return look for a post on Riggers, and a Let's Build post, most likely for a colorful Face character.
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