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

[Silent Wayfarer]

I wish to play an action hero-type guy without using magic (so no full mage or adept stuff), but IIRC, magic breaks the game totally in SR4, as it does everywhere else. Is there ANYTHING a mundane can do better than a magical type, or is my only accomplishment going to be a moral victory of sorts?

Also, FT said orks were the master race, should I stick with that? Ranged is always superior to melee, right?

[Winnah]

My experience with SR4E is pretty limited, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Mages can be powerful, but are also limited depending on what sort of starting BP allowence your group uses. A shapechanging possession mage will own face, as will a summoner or mind control specialist. Despite all of this, few mages can take being run over by a pick-up truck.

A sniper build might be cool, but can also be a little tedious as your character might have to camp in a hidden nest until the shooting starts.

Riggers bring their own complications unless your GM is lenient with vehicle IDs or you buy a chop shop/garage as a part of your lifestyle.

A stealthy melee type can be brutally effective, but again is limited by BP and starting cyberware.

Explosives are the shit! A sneaky rigger toymaker can play havoc, is easy to build, but has to have a decent income in order to function.

As for Orks, their appeal is their bonus to stats vs. their BP cost. Can be very effective for certain starting builds.

hope this helps.

[Medicineman]

I wish to play an action hero-type guy without using magic (so no full mage or adept stuff), but IIRC, magic breaks the game totally in SR4, as it does everywhere else. Is there ANYTHING a mundane can do better than a magical type, or is my only accomplishment going to be a moral victory of sorts?

Also, FT said orks were the master race, should I stick with that? Ranged is always superior to melee, right?

Woooahhh
Hold Your Horses ,please
If You've got such a "Mages-Supremacy-Mindset" (is that the right expression ?) and a "I've got to compete with the other Players"
You won't have any fun playing anything at all.
There are a lot of Professions that are fun to Play without being Awakened
but You've got to change your perspective first !

Hough !
Medicineman

[CatharzGodfoot]

Action heroes are pretty much the quintessential Adepts.

That said, there are tons of fun options that require no magic at all. I'm partial to the drone rigger and the 'below-the-radar ninja'.

[Silent Wayfarer]

I wish to play an action hero-type guy without using magic (so no full mage or adept stuff), but IIRC, magic breaks the game totally in SR4, as it does everywhere else. Is there ANYTHING a mundane can do better than a magical type, or is my only accomplishment going to be a moral victory of sorts?

Also, FT said orks were the master race, should I stick with that? Ranged is always superior to melee, right?

Woooahhh
Hold Your Horses ,please
If You've got such a "Mages-Supremacy-Mindset" (is that the right expression ?) and a "I've got to compete with the other Players"
You won't have any fun playing anything at all.
There are a lot of Professions that are fun to Play without being Awakened
but You've got to change your perspective first !

Hough !
Medicineman

Your tone is so damn patronizing that I'm starting to think I must be a Walmart. In any case, I'm already considering an Ork nonmage, which suggests that my stance on magic being broken is immaterial.

My experience with SR4E is pretty limited, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Mages can be powerful, but are also limited depending on what sort of starting BP allowence your group uses. A shapechanging possession mage will own face, as will a summoner or mind control specialist. Despite all of this, few mages can take being run over by a pick-up truck.

A sniper build might be cool, but can also be a little tedious as your character might have to camp in a hidden nest until the shooting starts.

Riggers bring their own complications unless your GM is lenient with vehicle IDs or you buy a chop shop/garage as a part of your lifestyle.

A stealthy melee type can be brutally effective, but again is limited by BP and starting cyberware.

Explosives are the shit! A sneaky rigger toymaker can play havoc, is easy to build, but has to have a decent income in order to function.

As for Orks, their appeal is their bonus to stats vs. their BP cost. Can be very effective for certain starting builds.

hope this helps.

It did, yes. The stealthy melée type concept gave me an idea for a Killer Janitor type of character; I.e uses disguise skills to blend in and then unleashes brutal beatdowns with 'wared or Adepted unarmed or melée. Adepts, melée and disguise are new territory for me, though, so further input on those would be appreciated.

EDIT: There's a Minotaur adept in the group, but fuck him, he's not the Killer Janitor.

Will I be spread too thin trying to cover stealth, disguise/lying and fighting? What are the minimum skills I'd need to be a competent bomberman?

[Winnah]

Taking the stealth group may be useful as I believe you get 4 skills for the inflated price.

Electronics may help with some issues such as bypassing security and setting timers.

Demolitions does not need to be high unless you want to make your own explosives or signature devices. A couple of points should be enough to set charges.

Combat can be tricky. It is tempting to try and buy a group, but that will leave you very short of build points. I would suggest a few points in unarmed, branching out into bludgeoning weapons so you can pick up random objects and fight reasonably well with them. Both of these styles have the advantage of being low profile. Unarmed can make a decent focus for a character, either wared or as an adept.

Contacts may come in handy. I would suggest a janitor/cleaning company guy. Someone low profile that has a reason to be on corp territoty. With a fake SIN and a few points in Con, you could claim to be a temp worker or filling in for someone. Your janitor friend could probably help you pick the right uniform, talk you though standard security protocols, etc.

A chemist may also be useful contact, being able to access homemade explosives and/or create various combat drugs may be to your advantage. Could be helpful if you need explosives for a Run and security has chem sniffing sensors or drones. Unique or uncommon compounds may be able to bypass such security measures.

About all I can think of off the top of my head. I might dig out some books later and flip though them. With your skill focus, I don't think you can afford to be heavily wared, so planning ahead may be important. This may mean taking extra contacts such as street docs or a magical contact if you plan on aquiring cyberware or joining a magical group.

[Medicineman]

Your tone is so damn patronizing that I'm starting to think I must be a Walmart. In any case, I'm already considering an Ork nonmage, which suggests that my stance on magic being broken is immaterial. Yup, I
might be quite Patronising,comes with the experience .
Whats the part about Walmart ? We don't have these here in Germany so I can't quite place the Expression (But it appears to be a kind of Flaming ?!)
Question is/was:
Do You want to Rant or do You want to have Fun gaming ?

with lots and lots of Dances
Medicineman

[TheFlatline]

Your tone is so damn patronizing that I'm starting to think I must be a Walmart. In any case, I'm already considering an Ork nonmage, which suggests that my stance on magic being broken is immaterial. Yup, I
might be quite Patronising,comes with the experience .
Whats the part about Walmart ? We don't have these here in Germany so I can't quite place the Expression (But it appears to be a kind of Flaming ?!)
Question is/was:
Do You want to Rant or do You want to have Fun gaming ?

with lots and lots of Dances
Medicineman

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

That being said, it's awful ballsy talk for someone who's lurked like you have.

[Silent Wayfarer]

Damn you autocorrect

[Silent Wayfarer]

Also, FWIW, we're doing 400BP with all books open. Since I haven't done Adepts before, how badly does ware fuck with them? I'm thinking of L3 Synaptic Boosters and maybe some bone lacing (get a license that says my neuroskeletal augs are because of some unfortunate childhood illness like space AIDS or something so I can go in legit.

Contacts with a cleaning-up agency is a capital idea. Contacts with a cleaning (AKA hired killer) agency could lead to amusement and plot hooks as somebody hires our hero for one thing when they actually end up needing the other.

Low profile weaponry... Was thinking of a monowhip or monowire garrote like Shinji from Johnny Mnemonic if pure fisting action didn't work out. Alternately, improvised weapons (like the mark's girlfriend) are an idea, but I don't know how concealable or effective they are, or even what skills govern them.

[Medicineman]

That being said, it's awful ballsy talk for someone who's lurked like you have.
Whats so important of having a 4-digit-Count of Posts ?

BtT
@Silent Wayfarers Char

Since I haven't done Adepts before, how badly does ware fuck with them?
1 Pt Essence loss = 1 Point less MAG
If You want to make an Adept (Good Idea ImO)
I'd suggest a Level 2 Synaptic booster,because thats exactly 1 Pt Essence Loss (and 160.000 ¥ !)
Bonelacing prevents you from doing Stun Damage (In case You need your victim alive)
If You take only Lvl 1 Synaptic Booster You can get Muscle...(Muskelverstärkung ?! ) The thingy that gives You AGI +2 for 16.000
or as Alpha Ware 32.000

with a last try to Dance
Medicineman

[kzt]

There are very few things that a guy with huge points in stealth, acting and several combat skills can do that a mage with Synaptic boosters 2, physical mask, invisibility and manabolt can't do better. Watching a mundane hand-to-hand guy fight a F8 spirit with energy aura is kind of amusing, in a sick trainwreck kind of way.

[Winnah]

Augmentation reduces your essence. You buy magic first, then apply the essence loss, so if you are planning on doing both, you're going to penalise the number of adept powers you can have running (some contention here, mainly to do with the order you buy powers and then lose magic). What is not up for debate is that you can know more adept powers than you can have active. You just need to take a moment to refocus I believe.

Attributes are going to be expensive. This is where the bonus attributes of Orks come in handy, as you may be able to afford to have a lower than average starting strength and body.

Personally, I would prioritise stealth, then Unarmed. Buy a couple of points in clubs if you have points left over. Monowhips and the like are covered in Exotic Weapons, a seperate skill. A few points in Con, Hardware and Demolitions should provide the basic skeleton of your character.

Shock gloves and shock frills may be useful gear to boost unarmed. Chemical protection may also be useful as it can be incorperated into a disguise and also into the arsenal of your character. Mixing some 'cleaning' chemicals together to create a cloud of toxic gas may provide some limited protection from ranged attacks and sensors in addition to hindering opponents.

In my experience, if you have a dicepool range of 8-10 for your primary skills you should be set for typical challenges. Hopefully, you'll have the opportunity to develop other skills as needed (depending on the length of the campaign).

You may want to take a look at some negative qualities to expand your BP a little. The only generic positive qualities I can think of come from Runners Companion. I suggest taking a look at Erased and Code of Conduct (Assassins Creed). Both should help with maintaining a low profile.

[Username17]

There is literally nothing in the whole game that you can do that cannot benefit from spells or spirits. Seriously: nothing. The question however is whether that benefit is worth the BP you would be expending to get it. And the answer there is often "no".

Magicians are objectively worse at getting through magical security in most places, because they detect as magicians. There are things you can do about that, but they cost BP. Magicians can provide boosts to hacking skills, but only a couple of dice and the BP cost is immense. More damning still: the dicepool boost you get can be more easily be gained from having a third party cast those spells on your behalf, because it is very BP intensive to sustain those spells without jacking over your dicepools.

Melee combat is a sucker´s game. Even monofilament whips, which are by far the best of them, are kind of crap compared to even a basic pistol. But sneaking around with a pistol is a very reasonable life choice. So is controlling a bunch of armed drones. A pile of drones is very likely to be far more firepower than any magic could ever hope to give you. The kinds of BP required to be as simultaneously deadly and concealable as a mundane with a pistol while having any kind of magic is pretty large.

-Username17

[Fucks]

I wish to play an action hero-type guy without using magic (so no full mage or adept stuff), but IIRC, magic breaks the game totally in SR4, as it does everywhere else. Is there ANYTHING a mundane can do better than a magical type, or is my only accomplishment going to be a moral victory of sorts?

Also, FT said orks were the master race, should I stick with that? Ranged is always superior to melee, right?

Woooahhh
Hold Your Horses ,please
If You've got such a "Mages-Supremacy-Mindset" (is that the right expression ?) and a "I've got to compete with the other Players"
You won't have any fun playing anything at all.
There are a lot of Professions that are fun to Play without being Awakened
but You've got to change your perspective first !

Hough !
Medicineman

Your tone is so damn patronizing that I'm starting to think I must be a Walmart.

Just ignore him.

[Murtak]

Shadowrun and action heroes do not mix well, at least in the standard setting. You are not reenacting Lethal Weapon or Predator. Think The Italian Job or Heat instead. You are not trying to be better than your teammates or opponents at any one thing, you are trying to be good enough in as many fields as possible. More specifically, there are some things every character is going to want. Everyone wants to have some way of fucking the opposition up, if only to not get roughed up by some punks on the way home. Everyone is going to want to have some stealth and perception. Many will want to be outstanding at some primary shtick. But after that, being competent at more than just one thing is key.

As to magic: Magic is powerful. Magic lets you break some of the rules. Magic also comes with a lot of restrictions. There are quite a few fun things you can do with spells and spirits, such as: stacking healing, levitating people, killing people in military armor, making cars go really fast, making people do something, then forgetting they did it ... the list is quite extensive. But so is the list of what a decker or rigger or samurai or face can do - and most of that, magic can not replicate. Magic won't let you hack doors and cameras, let you talk yourself into a high-security building, give you a backup army or repeatedly shoot guards.

So no, you don't have to worry about magic being better than nonmagic action heroes. But you should think about being something different than just an action hero. Being good at just shooting people or driving a car makes you a hired goon. Being good at shooting people, driving, infiltration and electronics makes you a valuable member of a team, able to contribute on every run.

[Username17]

You are not trying to be better than your teammates or opponents at any one thing, you are trying to be good enough in as many fields as possible.

Uh... no. This is just wrong on many levels. Your character is trying to do two things:

• Not be a liability to the team.
  and
• Be an asset to the team.

Yes, there are certain bases you need to cover. If you don't have an Infiltration dicepool of at least six dice, you are a liability to the team and need to rethink your life. But if you don't do something better than the other player characters, you aren't really an asset and people will wonder why you are on the mission. And by "people" I don't just mean the other players, I mean that you'll wonder that about yourself.

Being a jack of several trades is pretty awesome if and only if those trades are not part of the skill set of the other characters, making you the go-to guy several times in any plan. If other player characters can do those tasks at a specialist level, you won't generally be called upon to do those things and your points will make a flushing sound when spent.

-Username17

[Silent Wayfarer]

I find myself unable to disagree with FT, with the addition that if the game is mechanics-loose enough that twinking isn't needed, I shouldn't be asking about build advice in the first place.

Browsingthe older threads brought one of FT's other comments to mind; how hard is it to bring down a dragon (great or otherwise)? Can a high-initiation Mage really tell one to sit down and shut up?

[kzt]

It's easy, but not for a single individual can do (unless they are the guy pushing the launch button on the thor shot, which WILL do it pretty much every time). A reasonable skilled ritual assassination team, a thor shot, some heavy weapons, or numerous other approaches can kill them dead. It's only because developers are in love with their stupid plots that the stupid plots happen. Great dragon get some extra powers that help, but they don't help enough to handle the kind of damage that can be delivered to them by motivated people with the right equipment or skills.

[Silent Wayfarer]

Didn't some dragon survive an orbital strike once? Or was that cutscene power to the max or some related trope?

[Username17]

Didn't some dragon survive an orbital strike once? Or was that cutscene power to the max or some related trope?

Great Dragons in the cutscenes do all kinds of godzilla crap that they are manifestly unable to do based on their actual stats.

-Username17

[Murtak]

You are not trying to be better than your teammates or opponents at any one thing, you are trying to be good enough in as many fields as possible.

Uh... no. This is just wrong on many levels. Your character is trying to do two things:

• Not be a liability to the team.
  and
• Be an asset to the team.

Yes, there are certain bases you need to cover. If you don't have an Infiltration dicepool of at least six dice, you are a liability to the team and need to rethink your life. But if you don't do something better than the other player characters, you aren't really an asset and people will wonder why you are on the mission.

They keyword being "good enough". I don't care about my teammate having a bigger infiltration dicepool, damage value or whatever than me. I care about them having enough of an edge over the opposition. If we are up against standard corporate goons and you have an automatics dicepool of 25 that is great, but frankly, 10 of those dice are wasted and I'd rather see them in electronics or heck, unarmed. The only reason to push your limits and get more and more dice in something you are already good at, is to overcome tougher opposition. Even if there is nothing you are better at than other people on the team, if you cover more bases than them, you are an asset. And odds are, if you only do one thing well, you are a liability to me, because the second something goes wrong and we have to improvise you will shrug your shoulders and tell me you don't have what we need.

Now, if you are talking about starting characters using the official rules, it is tough to be good at more than one thing. But with at least some sane cost changes for skills and using BP for advancement I fully expect runners to be competent at at least two things, preferably three or four. Just being a sniper or face or rigger doesn't cut it. It is fine on many or even most runs, sure. But on those runs that don't work out as planned, the ones that get you killed, I want my face to be able to disable a maglock, my decker to kick ass and my rigger to smooth-talk the cops.

Being decent at something you already have the attributes for costs what, 10 build points, 15 tops? That should be enough to run with a double-digit dicepool in a useful skill and buy the tools to use it. Pushing your main skill dicepool from 18 to 19 will probably run you at least that much, if not more. And I for one, would rather bring a face with electronics, data search and unarmed than one with 19 instead of 18 dice in the social skills to most runs.

[Murtak]

Browsingthe older threads brought one of FT's other comments to mind; how hard is it to bring down a dragon (great or otherwise)? Can a high-initiation Mage really tell one to sit down and shut up?

You don't need mages. Mages are good at killing a single tough opponent, dragons are good against magic - overall meh. Guns will work just fine. Introduce a (non-great) dragon to enough miniguns, rocket launchers or sniper rifles and watch them explode. And "enough" need not even be a number higher than one if you manage to ambush the dragon. An aimed narrow full auto burst with EX ammunition will give you 7+4+14+2 = 27 base damage. Now, assuming a mere 7 agility, 6 skill, smartlink and aiming you will score about 5 successes, 8 with an edge for rerolling. Thats 34 damage, on average. I can't remember normal dragon stats right now, but you need, on average, about seventy-five dice to get that damage down to a number that merely deals you a very serious wound (50ish if the dragon has and uses edge). That is one professional shooter, getting the drop on that dragon with a serious weapon, shooting once.

Bottom line, hit dragons with heavy weapons, they die. Great dragons are tougher, but the basics are the same. They are tough, but guns hurt. A lot.

[Kot]

The amount of nice Qualities in Runners Companion, and possible combos with those is huge. Plus, if you're playing a mundane character, you save 50+ Build Points (from Magic/Resonance and aligned qualities), or even 88-90 in case of a mage. Foci, spells and magical active skills cost a lot.

So, in the end your 'mundane' character ends up being a lot more flexible, skilled and experienced in more than just one area. Yes, you can build a martial adept, or a face that gets 20 dice in 'their thing', but that's it. They just have one trick, like being a god of negotiations, or an ass-kicking master of the flaming fist. And your 'mundane' character has fighting skills, people skills, tech skills, and even other stuff, like sneakiness, or driving. He can fill in the gaps that the rest of the group - all those mages, adepts and technomancers - create by specializing. And that's good. Especially for the story, since your 'mundane' character will be a jack-in-the-box that takes part in everything the group does.

[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.

Likewise, orks are not "the master race".

I'd start trying to justify this, but I'm not sure anyone actually disagrees with me.