[lordraz]

Hi, my friends and I are planning on running a Shadowrun game and I was just wondering if any one had some advice for my hacker im building.
The direction im going with the character is a power hacker with some skills with longarms to help give combat suport. Hes the basic build I made without any gear yet.(gona read up on it and work it out in a bit)

Race: Human 0BP

Stats: 200BP
Body: 3
Agi: 3
React: 4
Str: 2
Char: 2
Int: 5
Logic: 5
Will: 4
Edge: 2

Skills: 138BP
Cracking: 4
Electronics: 4
Longarms: 3 (Spec: Sporting Rifles)
Perception: 3
Infiltration: 2 3
Dodge 3
Etiguette: 2
Biotech: 1

Qualities: 30, -30BP
Codeslinger(Hack on the Fly)
Photographic Memory
Erased(Fast) (Thought this might be interesting not sure how good it is)
Combat Paralysis (was thinking either this or Uncouth)
Signiture

Contacts: 12BP
i wasnt to sure about contacts but i took
Blogger: 2/2
Fixer:  2/3
Hacker: 3/4

Gear: 50BP
250k to be figured out later.

Total 400BP

Any kind of comments or advice are welcome as I have played other games but am new to shadow run.  

THx.

[Kot]

You need Dodge. Everyone needs Dodge. And that Longarms skill isn't very usefull for a Hacker. You need something lighter and more handy for self-defense.

[Doc Chaos]

No etiquette also won't get you very far...

[lordraz]

OK i Droped Biotect and the blogger Contact to pick up
3 Dodge
2 Etiquette
1 More into Infiltration
and the Signature Quality to get 10 BP

Also with the Longarms Skill I was going to use a Shotgun maybe Sawed off for close range combat.
Our group size is also atleast 5 people so there will be a "Meat Shield" or two to help out.

[lordraz]

although i might swap out longarms for pistols, or change the spec in longarms to shotguns becuase one of our players is making a jamebond esc Face. that specilizes in fire arms and infiltraion

[Dead Monky]

The Remmington Roomsweeper is a shotgun-type heavy pistol.  And a pretty nasty gun at close range.

[Kontact]

I'd be kinda shy about letting a player take Signature and Erased at the same time.
(Also, Erased is just a non-hacker's way of automatically running the Corrupt program every 24 hours.)

I've finally lain eyes upon the sweetness that is the new Leadership rules, and it seems like a decent fit for a hacker to have a touch of it now.  You can use your overwatch position to do things like make a Logic + Leadership test to give the rest of the team a +2 Initiative bonus or an Intuition + Leadership test to give all shooters a +1 DP bonus to fire on a target of your choosing.

Not bad options to take if you don't have a line of fire yourself.


Really though, a hacker build is 60% gear, so you'll probably need a bit of help getting your kit in order.

[Maelstrom]

Some suggestions:

Int-1, Cha +1 -- no cost

Edge +1 -- cost 5BP


Drop Photographic Memory -- gain 10BP
Drop Combat Paralysis -- cost 20BP

Change Dodge to Gymnastics
Change Longarms (sniper rifle) to pistols (holdout pistols), buy 2 Morrissey Elan (AR21) with Hi-C rounds (AR34)

Change Hacker contact to Cracker Underground (organization) for help updating/patching your degrading software

Reduce gear from 50BP to 35BP -- gain 15BP


A few gear thoughts:

Ergonomic option (UN114): Analyze, Encrypt

Agent: 1) crack it and enable hacking, 2) buy homeground option (UN114) and run the agent on your commlink to help spot incoming hackers when not otherwise in use

Fly-Spy mini-drone; have it hover in hidden mode next to your helpless Hot SIM body and alert your commlink if somebody comes close

[Wyldknight]

PuSHeD is a good idea. It adds +1 dice to all logic linked skills. Not skills that use the logic stat but logic LINKED. So that means they will add to your hacking pool.

[Kontact]

Some annotations:
Int-1, Cha +1 -- no cost [except to your free knowledge skills.  int is initiative in meat and matrix. keep it high]

Edge +1 -- cost 5BP [where does this bargain come from? it's 10BP to raise and 25bp for max, like all attributes.] 


Drop Photographic Memory -- gain 10BP [not a bad call.  log + will for memory test is already going to be very high on your guy.  10BP is silly.]
Drop Combat Paralysis -- cost 20BP [CP isn't terrible if you're slow to begin with, but the difference between going 3rd or going last isn't the same as the difference between going 7th or going last.  I understand you're looking for a sniper character, so stand-up fights aren't your thing.  Too bad.  You will get into a CC fight sooner or later, and CP will kill you.  A few smaller neg quals will allow you to buy off some of them more quickly once you're earning karma.  40 karma to buy off CP will never happen.  Character development also paralyzed.]

Change Dodge to Gymnastics [Nope.  You need dodge for working with drones and vehicles, which you will want to do in time.  Also, with only gym, you'll get murdered in H2H.]
Change Longarms (sniper rifle) to pistols (holdout pistols), buy 2 Morrissey Elan (AR21) with Hi-C rounds (AR34) [Booooring.  Defiance t-250 shortbarrel + sling and sawed-off mod will get you a concealable longarm.  Easy breakdown will do the rest.  Obviously not a "talk your way in at the door" type character anyway.]

Change Hacker contact to Cracker Underground (organization) for help updating/patching your degrading software [well, degrading software is optional, but this is a good call regardless.  You are a hacker - you don't need a hacker - you need a software supplier.]

Reduce gear from 50BP to 35BP -- gain 15BP [hell no!  gear uber alles! there's basically nothing you can get for 15bp that you can't get cheaper by using the proper gear.]

[Kot]

Drop Photographic Memory, use Image Link in your SmartGoggles.

[Maelstrom]

Some annotations:
Int-1, Cha +1 -- no cost [except to your free knowledge skills.  int is initiative in meat and matrix. keep it high]

Edge +1 -- cost 5BP [where does this bargain come from? it's 10BP to raise and 25bp for max, like all attributes.] 

Change Dodge to Gymnastics [Nope.  You need dodge for working with drones and vehicles, which you will want to do in time.  Also, with only gym, you'll get murdered in H2H.]
Change Longarms (sniper rifle) to pistols (holdout pistols), buy 2 Morrissey Elan (AR21) with Hi-C rounds (AR34) [Booooring.  Defiance t-250 shortbarrel + sling and sawed-off mod will get you a concealable longarm.  Easy breakdown will do the rest.  Obviously not a "talk your way in at the door" type character anyway.]

Reduce gear from 50BP to 35BP -- gain 15BP [hell no!  gear uber alles! there's basically nothing you can get for 15bp that you can't get cheaper by using the proper gear.]

Edge cost at 5BP was a brain lapse on my part.  The rest I consider playstyle preference but (as always) Kontact makes excellent points.

[Bradd]

You need dodge for working with drones and vehicles, which you will want to do in time.  Also, with only gym, you'll get murdered in H2H.

Good call on the vehicles, but it's not necessarily a problem for melee combat. My reading is that melee gymnastics gives you basic melee defense + Gymnastics: Reaction + (Dodge, Unarmed, or weapon skill) + Gymnastics. That's troublesome for this character, which has no close combat skills, but it's a good deal for somebody already built for melee.

The other advantage to keeping Dodge is that you can specialize it for ranged defense (or melee, but that's usually easier).

[Lansdren]

Whilst I know this is a hacker, I would say plan for some gunnery and pilot skills later on. A drone that can protect you will be something very handy if you leave your meat body on its own for a while. Hell even a gun turret with a upgraded pilot and a targetting autosoft would be handy to just drop next to you for defense.