[SR4] Am I fucking myself by not making a magical character?

[Silent Wayfarer]

So it seems that the most sensible sort of low-profile killer is going to have a cyberholster with a silenced (?) Ares Slivergun which he uses to pew people at close range and then he fucks right off... Melee (probably unarmed) is going to be a last resort.

Speaking of which - is there anyway I can alter that stats of a cybergun?

[kzt]

Assertions:

Mages are not better than everything, certainly not at starting level. They are definitely not better than death cyborgs AKA street samurai, assuming both characters are 400 BP starting characters at the same level of optimization.

True. However a mage with physical mask, improved invisibility and stunbolt is going to normally be better at slipping into secure places and removing people silently (and significantly more effective in general combat) then a mundane stealth/disguise guy with melee-only skills and weapons. I'm not sure if he'll be cheaper, but skills in SR are crazy overpriced and you need a pile of them (and lots of points in strength etc) to do the sneak/disguise/HtH shtick.

[Username17]

True. However a mage with physical mask, improved invisibility and stunbolt is going to normally be better at slipping into secure places and removing people silently (and significantly more effective in general combat) then a mundane stealth/disguise guy with melee-only skills and weapons. I'm not sure if he'll be cheaper, but skills in SR are crazy overpriced and you need a pile of them (and lots of points in strength etc) to the the sneak/disguise/HtH shtick.

Skills are overpriced, yes. But Spells of any kind leave visible astral signatures that last for hours. If there are any watchers on hand at all, spell-based removal is a lot louder than taser-based removal.

-Username17

[kzt]

Skills are overpriced, yes. But Spells of any kind leave visible astral signatures that last for hours. If there are any watchers on hand at all, spell-based removal is a lot louder than taser-based removal.

Given that watchers in SR can barely make a perception roll to see a magical fire truck with it's magical lights and sirens on ....

But ignoring that piece of rules idiocy, yeah. The same watcher will also notice when someone mysteriously stops being alive, and a mundane assassin will have no idea he's been spotted.

And you can completely remove an astral signature a lot faster than you can completely scrub brains off the wall such that the forensic guys can't spot it.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Tasers don't splatter brains.

[Fuchs]

Poison is another way to remove people silently. Spell signatures can be a real bitch to deal with. You can leave all the brains of your targets on your walls, but leaving your signature for someone to askenn it can ruin your career.

[Murtak]

Ok, assuming killing people in secure facilities without being detected is the benchmark - well, there are benefits to both types of killer. Mages get some very nice infiltration toys and can get their actual killing done opposed by willpower, which can be very nice. The actual killing is not "louder" than a mundane killing, astrally or otherwise. Mundanes on the other hand can hide in crowds. If there are enough other mundanes around, they can be virtually indetectible. High attributes, some bioware augmentations, a datajack and cybereyes and you can simply walk into a corporation's headquarters in broad daylight, trick your way past a guard, pick a lock, and do your deed and unless you fuck up one of your admittedly many rolls no one has a chance of detecting you. You don't show up on the astral, except as another midly augmented corporate wageslave. You don't show up on scanners. You might show up on cameras, but a disguise will cover that. Unless they actually catch you hacking someone into pieces with a monowhip you are in the clear.

That said, assassination is a rather narrow benchmark. Anyone can kill anyone, so what you are left with is really a stealth contest, and that depends as heavily on terrain and planning as it does on having spells or augmentations at your disposal.

[Whipstitch]

Mundanes do fine unless your GM starts the game out with crazy starting conditions and/or hands out karma by bucketful. Mundane archetypes that are highly gear driven like Street Samurai and Drone Riggers stand out in particular as winners. That's because it's hard to beat the sheer cost effectiveness of Synthacardium & attribute augmenting 'ware and because a drone fleet can be very deadly in a head-on fight. A tweaked bio-adept can admittedly mine the same territory, but they'll often spend quite a while playing catch up first or else be relatively lacking in good stuff like Edge or Perception. Meanwhile the Street Samurai is happily picking up new skill groups and specializations on the cheap with karma. Oftentimes it becomes a question of whether it's better to have a guy who averages a net hit more on shooting or having a guy with more armor/health and can contribute a die or two in multiple tests via Teamwork.

So if you want to go with an action hero type, there's little reason why you couldn't build a Street Samurai and have a blast. The only thing I would emphasize is that a Street Samurai is basically survival knife to the Drone Rigger's howitzer. You won't quite have the same raw power, but at least you can open a can without waking the neighbors. What Samurai "lack" in raw fire power they can make up for by being tough, passably smart and very hard to ambush while being stealthier and facing less logistical woes than a Rigger's heavy drone cadre. And lack is truly a relative term in this case because a tweaked samurai can still really bring the pain in a lot of situations. A tweaked samurai easily be built to take deadly accurate shots even in the face of situational modifiers like darkness, cover and wound penalties. Cheap and effective picks I'd emphasize for a street sam are Wired 2, Reaction Enhancers, Muscle Toners, Synthacardium and Attention Co-processors.

[Silent Wayfarer]

This is all great advice; thanks. What are Attention Coprocessors, though, and why is MBW considered a scrub's tool as compared to Wired Reflexes and Synaptic Boosters (which are the most expensive of the IP adders) ?

[Whipstitch]

The Attention Coprocessor is written up in Augmentation. The beauty of it is that the opportunity cost is so low. It's just cheap piece of cyberware that gives a bonus equal to its rating (maximum of 3) to non-magical non-matrix Perception tests. To give you an idea of how cheap we're talking about, a standard grade rating 3 implant only sets you back .3 essence and 9k/2bp if I remember correctly. At that price you could rip them out later in your career and use the essence hole for something else and not lose much sleep over it.

As for MBW, you can actually do worse given that it's practically 3 pieces of 'ware and a Dodge bonus for the same essence cost as equivalently rated Wired Reflexes. But generally I want my Samurai to have 3 IPs and at 22 bps* I find MBW 2 to be a bit too expensive to merit a general recommendation. My issue with MBW really comes down to the fact that I don't make much use of ActiveSofts in post SR4A games and that I prefer to take Gymnastics/Athletics over the Dodge skill. Remember, without qualities you can only spend 50 bp on starting gear and MBW2 and a rating 4 ActiveSoft is already halfway there.

*Remember, you'll also need the 5 bp Restricted Gear Quality to qualify for MBW2.

[Silent Wayfarer]

All good points. I went with a kung fu adept moonlighting as an office cleaner (Day Job) / lucha libre wrestler (Fame) in the end. How necessary is the Type O quality, given that I use Bioware extensively but it costs 30 BP?

Also, is the Ultimate Archer Of Doom (14P base bow) still feasible? I doubt it, since a HV weapon can ram 4 bursts into 4 people or full burst shit all over the place and narrow bursts rapidly make up for it. Although, shooting spirits in the face with harpoons is amusing.

[echoVanguard]

kung fu adept moonlighting as an office cleaner (Day Job)

Did anyone else read this sentence and immediately think of Hong Kong Phooey?

echo

[sabs]

make a character with a 3 hardware skill, and a 3 armorer skill.
All the questionable augmentations you give him with bioware, all the clearly legal ones in cyberware.

You need to go somewhere with high security checkpoints? Disassemble your stun gun, put various parts of ti on your person, so it looks like regular stuff. Cross the check point, put it back together.

Now you're a killing machine with a stun gun inside the building.
And that stun gun isn't going to leave giant mickey mouse hands pointing at your astral signature.

[Stahlseele]

The Ultimate Mundane Climber comes to mind.
Brick the Tank-Troll.
The fastest Runner ever.
The Troll-Archer.
Cyber can do most everything an adept can do BETTER in Starting Characters. Later on, though, the Adept that was at about 80% of what a good Cyber/Bio-Samurai can be in Character Creation can overcome most of these limitations and become better than the mundane. But straight out of the Box, a good cyber/bio-mix usually tops anything that's not a spellslinger or conjurer.
Best example where cyber will stay better than magic is the adept power gliding(water-walk) in comparsion to skimmer disk feet. Gliding is limited to magic meters. Skimmer-Disks are not limited by ANYTHING. and they allow faster movement and gliding behind a vehicle by simply holding on to it. Wall-Running? Gecko-Tape. Jumping? Hydraulic Jacks. All these really CyberPUNK things are, usually, better in the CYBER-Version than in most anything else, if it is not Surged in for basically free.

Keep in mind though, the examples i listed up above are more or less absolutely twinked out for one specific purpose with anything else being tacked on as an afterthought . . And they will, usually, mark you as a munchkin/powergamer to boot. But they ARE fun concepts that are extremely good at what they do, superhumanly good. Good enough for Last Action Heroes . .

[Silent Wayfarer]

I must have missed skimmer-disk feet or whatever they're called. Are they in Augmentation?

[Stahlseele]

Yes, Augmentation Page 47/48:

Skimmer Discs: A modular plug-in for cyberfeet, these
ground effect platforms are based on microskimmer drone technology.
When in use, the discs create a directed ground-effect
cushion under the character’s feet, allowing him to hover a few
centimeters above the ground. Ducted fans and some practice at
controlling inclination provide thrust and direction. Skimmerdiscs allow the character to move at twice his normal Walking
and Running Rates (see Movement, p. 138, SR4) while hovering
10 to 30 centimeters above the ground. Excessive weight (at the
gamemaster’s discretion) or particularly rough terrain may make
it difficult to maneuver skimmer discs.

[Neurosis]

Assertions:

Mages are not better than everything, certainly not at starting level. They are definitely not better than death cyborgs AKA street samurai, assuming both characters are 400 BP starting characters at the same level of optimization.

True. However a mage with physical mask, improved invisibility and stunbolt is going to normally be better at slipping into secure places and removing people silently (and significantly more effective in general combat) then a mundane stealth/disguise guy with melee-only skills and weapons. I'm not sure if he'll be cheaper, but skills in SR are crazy overpriced and you need a pile of them (and lots of points in strength etc) to do the sneak/disguise/HtH shtick.

False Front. Enhanced Articulation. Reflex Recorder. Muscle Toner. Chameleon Suit. Parashield Dart Pistol. Monofilament Garotte.

Almost everything magical has a technological answer that's equally efficient...especially at starting level, where power creep is not getting retarded (in here). It is only the mundane AND uncybered character that is at a constant disadvantage. As a system it is very unfriendly to trying to be James Bond or Batman. Also the cyber option doesn't suffer from omnipresent magic hate like Background Count (which unfailingly gets written into like every published adventure) although obviously there are people here who strongly feel you'd be wasting your time using those anyway.

[Murtak]

It is only the mundane AND uncybered character that is at a constant disadvantage. As a system it is very unfriendly to trying to be James Bond or Batman.

Heck, even those are fine if you specialize in anything not related to combat. Unless of course you mean totally uncybered, not even a datajack or cybereyes. But for example being a face and infiltrator is doable using only legal cyberware.

[Stahlseele]

Going for CLASSIC BATMAN is pretty hard, yeah, but going for BATMAN BEYOND is actually more doable right now, if you can get your hands on the armor and mods . .
Also, i have yet to see a single gaming round/table where background count is used outside of official stuff . . especially one without one or more of the mage players going:"dude no fair! the cyber-guy does not have his power cut in half like this!"
And then they demand that sensors and the such be fucking every where so they can shine even more, without the background count . .

[kzt]

I someone nuke an entire room FULL of low force spirits with mana static in an online game I was in that Frank was running.

[Username17]

Mana Static is amazing, since for practical purposes it violates the non-interactivity clause between planes for attacks. That is to say that you can stand in the physical and drop a Mana Static and non-materialized astral forms will drop. No combat mage should go through life without Mana Static. For much the same reason as no Hacker should go through life without an area jammer. Sometimes the best thing a planar specialist can do for their allies is remove their plane of interest from considerations.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

The only thing better than mana static is aspected mana static *snickers*