[Hassassin Fiday]

Hey everyone. I need some help building my girlfriend's character for my shadowrun game. She wants to play a Black Widow / covert ops / assassin.

She wants to stay human. I'm thinking skills over attributes cause Black Widow seems to have a huge skill set. One thing I cant decide on is, would Physical Adept be better or go with bioware build (Since after reading up on Black Widow, she has alot of biotech).

I do have a large group and she will end up being one of the main combat roles (other combat guy is a sniper). So she wants a good mix of melee and ranged and prefers to sneak up on her targets and take them by surprise. Also giving her con and etiquette for those certain social situations. Locksmith and computer for B&E to help round her out.

Any advice will be gladly appreciated.

[ProfGast]

For the record, it should be Locksmith and Hardware for B&E, Computer really doesn't help much (that's basically how well you navigate the Matrix).  Cybersecurity should be the the decker's schtick.

As for Adept vs. Augmentation, there's pros and cons both ways.  I feel that right now an Adept has more "cute tricks" they can pull as a B&E specialist.  For the Awakened B&E specialist you're best taking powers that boost specific skill rolls or such.  Also awakened have relatively easier access to Reflex Enhancement.

An augmented specialist on the other hand will probably have higher base stats since physical stat boosting 'ware is cheaper to come by than adept powers (except for reflex enhancers) but fewer off-the-wall tricks (as the augmentation selection is a bit limited still in 5e)

[Medicineman]

an Adept with some 'ware (for 1 or maybe 2 Essence ) is a good concept !
But it is very difficult to acheive  it with the current Priority System !
 the Karmasystem (or even the BP System ) would be better suited, but CGL will release it later in the Running Harder (Compendium)
Back to Priority System:
If You choose A for Skills (46/10)
 E for Human (1) and C for Resources (140.000 ¥ to buy some 'ware and equipment)
There is only B and D leftover for Attributes and Magic
so either Your Char has good Attributes (B 20) but only low MAG ( maybe only 2 (+1 for Human -1 for Essence loss)
or she's got MAG 5 (6 -1 for Essence) but only 14 Points for Attributes and this is insufficient for a Black Widow Char

HokaHey
Medicineman

[8-bit]

The first question is, which books do you have? If you don't have Street Grimoire, I would highly advise you to go the bioware (you might want a little cyberware too) route. If you do have Street Grimoire, you can honestly build either way, but Adept becomes much more appealing and fun.

[ZeldaBravo]

There you go. The sample character is in the attachement. I've picked toxin extractor bioware to represent the Black Widow's natural resistance. It is a good idea to rename a mentor spirit to 'Spider' for the fluff.
The character is agile, sneaky, fast, gracious and she knows jujitsu! Hope your girlfriend will like her.
I almost forgot one thing: you need to get B&E equipment yourself, I'm too tired to find it right now. Or maybe fellows around here will help you with it.
Good luck!

[Wakshaani]

Weirdly, I'm in a similar situation and I'm trying to figure out where to go. SKills A, Attributes B, that was easy. From there?

Magic C, Resources D, Race E - Your typical physical adept that was pressed into a special ops-type situation.
Race C, Resources D, Magic E - An Elf (It's always an Elf) with the Black Widow/Nakita/River Tan/Exe Ass Iris vibe.
Resources C, Race D, Magic E for a "cyberninja" type.

For basic CovOps, you only need about 10K in core gear (Chameloen suit with thermal dampening, climbing gear, lockpicks, etc), with another 10K in fancy toys (Cellular glove? Seriously?) that are more Mirrorshades than Mohawk.

Here's where I'm at, so at least we can commiserate in unity.

Attributes (B)
B 3, A 4, R 3, S 4, W 3, L 4, I 3, C 4, Ess ?, Edg ?, Mag ?

Active SKills (A)
Acting Group 4, Electronics Group 2, Influence Group 4

Automatics 4, Blades 2, Escape Artist 4, Exotic Ranged (Grapple Gun) 1, Gymnastics 4, Lockpicking 4, Palming 4, Pistols 4, Sneaking 6, Throwing Weapons 2, Unarmed Combat 4, Pilot Ground Craft 1, Running 2, Swimming 2, Diving 1, Disguise 3, Perception 3, Electronic Warfare 1, First Aid 1, Industrial Mechanic 1
(Has spent 10 Karma on Active Skills)

Qualities (+/- 0)
Catlike, Double Jointed, Natural Athelete
Code of Honor (Assassin's Code), SINner (National)

Gear (10,000 spent thusfar)
Chameloen Suit with Thermal Dampening (4), Goggles (1) with Lowlight vision, Climbing Gear, Flashlight, Flashlight (lowlight), Gecko Tape(tm) gloves, Rapelling gloves, Grapple gun with 200 m of microwire, Catalyst stick, two 100m Stealth ropes, two 100m Stanard rope, Lockpick set, Twenty plastic restraints, Binoculars (Optical), Periscope, Micro-microcamera, Sequencer (4), Keycard Copier (5)

POSSIBLE gear (10,000)
Maglock Passkey (4), Cellular glove molder (4)

Still hasn't picked up a Hardware kit or a Disguise kit, weapons, a vehcile, lifestyle, etc, but still has quite a bit of cash (40 or 30K for Resources D, +90K more if Resources C) if I decide to go cybernetic. The actual B&E skills of Hardware could use a bit of help, but the social side seemed more fitting (Being able to talk your way past problems with Con, Disguise, and Negotiation), with some old school lockpicking and new-school "Tech, open this for me" style. Seducing someone, then palming their keycard to make a copy to get you in, rather than brute-force hacking, seemed a better angle. Your covert ops agent may vary, of course.

(Sadly, I did lose Exotic Weapon: Parashield Dartpistol (4) which I'd love to have back, but it didn't quite fit.)

Regardless, what you have is a generalist that focuses on stealth but can also work with a team (Decker for hitting locks, Cyberguy for hard combat, etc) ... heck, with a bit of skill tweaking, you could use the Covert OPerative as a basis for a whole professional Shadowrunning team, with other members having a different specialization but also a general coverage of stealth and the like.

So, you know, I'm sort of in teh same situation as you on this one.