I'm going to be playing Shadowrun (the current edition)
I know stuff about the setting, I know zilch about how the mechanics work. Well, I've had a look at the rulebook, I get how the game goes, but I'm not sure what works, what is under/overpowered, etc.
I'm angling to play a (maybe heavy) weapon type guy. There's a rigger, a technomancer and a mage in the party.
Basically, I'm thinking of getting an Ares Alpha, and going for a high-initiative build, maybe with bioware or cyberware giving me extra initiative passes (to basically go first, grenade any opposition, then snipe off the survivors) The idea being to inflict wound modifiers to a large bunch of people to protect the team. Would that work?
Shadowrun
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Whipstitch
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Big advice is that skills are overpriced relative to attributes so try to be really disciplined about how many weapon skills you take because they become redundant quickly. Basically, if you have Heavy Weapons and Automatics there's pretty much no particularly good reason to pick up Pistols or Longarms given that machine guns have impressive range and SMGs and machine pistols can fit into brief cases without being broken down. Ultimately, having 7 Agility and a 4 in your weapon skill is really nothing to be ashamed of, particularly if you have nice goggles or cybereyes that can help you beat negative vision modifiers.
Anyway, I'd softcap intuition, reaction and agility and then invest heavily in 'ware--particularly attribute boosters, wired 2 and Attention Coprocessors--and Edge. My characters typically only end up in the 110-120 range for skills since there's usually something out there worth capping nuyen and special attributes out for. General stuff that's good for everyone to be good at is Infiltration, Perception, Gymnastics--Gymnastics covers feats of balance, jumping and can sub in for Dodge-- and Con.
Anyway, I'd softcap intuition, reaction and agility and then invest heavily in 'ware--particularly attribute boosters, wired 2 and Attention Coprocessors--and Edge. My characters typically only end up in the 110-120 range for skills since there's usually something out there worth capping nuyen and special attributes out for. General stuff that's good for everyone to be good at is Infiltration, Perception, Gymnastics--Gymnastics covers feats of balance, jumping and can sub in for Dodge-- and Con.
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Whipstitch
- Prince
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- Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:23 pm
5 if you spend a point of Edge but I never bother with more than 3 passes. If you must be an adept I'd recommend spending the power points on stuff tech can't easily replace, like Commanding Voice or stacking Kinesics with Tailored Pheromones. When it comes to pure combat being an adept who relies on high rating powers is paying double the cost for 3/4s of the results.
Frank has a bunch of houserules that are in the Ends Of The Matrix sticky that make life for adepts a lot easier, in addition to making hacking not a massive clusterfuck.
Essentially, what you just described is the essential Street Samurai build. What you want to do is get a really good weapon- Ares Alpha works well- if you have infinite monies and contacts an Ares HVBR (from War!) with the FA and gas vent mods works really well, so long as you have a separate grenade launcher, like the MGL-6 or something. Pump intuition and put a bunch of points into perception- this makes you go first (which is super important) and allows you to notice things, which is also super important, given that you're playing cyber-ninja super-spy operatives.
You actually don't need to care that much about agility and weapon skills- having an agility of 4, muscle toner (or the adept equivalent) 3 and weapon skill 4, plus speciality and a smartlink is plenty. The reason for this is if you're doing ranged combat, they'll be rolling at most reaction+dodge- which will usually be around 5-8 dice, and you'll be rolling a lot ore. The only utility you'll get out of more dice is more damage, and since you'll get one net hit per three dice, on average, more weapon dice isn't a great way to to go about doing things.
Compounding the fact that you don't get that much extra damage, there's the two-hit problem, which Frank has expounded on at length. Essentially, it takes a lot of damage to go from killing the average mook in two bursts, which is what you'll usually be doing, to one, which makes extra damage really not that useful, past a point.
A few notes- I suggest adopting the houserule that stick-n-shock damage can't be increased by net hits, to make it merely an incredibly good option, instead of the greatest thing since sliced bread. Tag erasers are amazingly useful, and Form-fitting body armor, a Lined Coat, and the SecureTech PPP system seriously gives you protection on par with MilSpec armour, although you don't get all the sweet mods. Also, if you're playing a street samurai, I recommend having lots of guns. You need a gun for "breaking into secure lab," a gun for "running security at a society ball," a gun for "meeting with gang lord," and so on. No matter the situation, you should have some kind of gun that you can bring there without getting punished for it that will prove effective.
Another important note- the number of ranks you can have in any adept power is equal to your magic attribute- it's a super important rule and it's mentioned once in the SR4A rulebook in small type.
Essentially, what you just described is the essential Street Samurai build. What you want to do is get a really good weapon- Ares Alpha works well- if you have infinite monies and contacts an Ares HVBR (from War!) with the FA and gas vent mods works really well, so long as you have a separate grenade launcher, like the MGL-6 or something. Pump intuition and put a bunch of points into perception- this makes you go first (which is super important) and allows you to notice things, which is also super important, given that you're playing cyber-ninja super-spy operatives.
You actually don't need to care that much about agility and weapon skills- having an agility of 4, muscle toner (or the adept equivalent) 3 and weapon skill 4, plus speciality and a smartlink is plenty. The reason for this is if you're doing ranged combat, they'll be rolling at most reaction+dodge- which will usually be around 5-8 dice, and you'll be rolling a lot ore. The only utility you'll get out of more dice is more damage, and since you'll get one net hit per three dice, on average, more weapon dice isn't a great way to to go about doing things.
Compounding the fact that you don't get that much extra damage, there's the two-hit problem, which Frank has expounded on at length. Essentially, it takes a lot of damage to go from killing the average mook in two bursts, which is what you'll usually be doing, to one, which makes extra damage really not that useful, past a point.
A few notes- I suggest adopting the houserule that stick-n-shock damage can't be increased by net hits, to make it merely an incredibly good option, instead of the greatest thing since sliced bread. Tag erasers are amazingly useful, and Form-fitting body armor, a Lined Coat, and the SecureTech PPP system seriously gives you protection on par with MilSpec armour, although you don't get all the sweet mods. Also, if you're playing a street samurai, I recommend having lots of guns. You need a gun for "breaking into secure lab," a gun for "running security at a society ball," a gun for "meeting with gang lord," and so on. No matter the situation, you should have some kind of gun that you can bring there without getting punished for it that will prove effective.
Another important note- the number of ranks you can have in any adept power is equal to your magic attribute- it's a super important rule and it's mentioned once in the SR4A rulebook in small type.
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Whipstitch
- Prince
- Posts: 3660
- Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:23 pm
Sorry, I was unclear. What I meant was "a gun for running security for a ball with no-one realizing you're doing so," which would probably mean a Morrissey Elan or something. By "meet with a gang lord," again, I was assuming you wouldn't want to be too loud, because he'd think something was up if you walked in with a grenade launcher, so maybe an Ingram Smartgun X would work well. And by "break into secure lab," I meant that anyone who sees you will shoot you no matter what, so you may as well bring the milspec gear, like an Ares Alpha. Sadly, none of that was implied by my words- my bad.