[Stepping Razor]

Hoi, this is my first attempt at putting together a new character since 2nd Edition, so I'm a little rusty. I'd appreciate any help and advice I can get.

Thanks in advance!

Name: Stepping Razor
Alias:
Race: Elf
Sex: Female
Nationality:
Lifestyle: Low
Karma Spent: 25 to raise Edge to 3, 10 to gain an additional 20,000¥
Physical Description:
Personality/background


Body   Agility   Reaction   Strength
2(4)    9*(10)     5(7/9)       2(4)
Charisma   Intuition    Logic   Willpower
3                 5             2          3
Edge   Magic/Resonance   Essence   Initiative
3          0                          .04             14 + 3D6

Positive Qualities
Negative Qualities
+10 Karma - Moderate Allergy, Gold
+10 Karma - Mild Allergy, Bee Stings
-14  Karma - Exceptional Attribute, Agility

Limits
Physical Limit - 6
Mental Limit - 5
Social Limit - 3

Active Skills
Athletics Skill Group  - 1
Influence Skill Group - 1
Automatics- 6
    Specialized in Assault Rifles (+2)
Longarms - 3
Pistols - 2
Heavy Weapons - 1
Perception - 6
Sneaking - 4
Throwing Weapons - 1
Unarmed Combat - 1
Pilot Ground Craft - 1
First Aid - 1
Computer - 1
 
Knowledge Skills ( [Logic + Intuition] x 2 free points)
   
Language Skills

Cyber/Bioware
[Alpha] Reaction Enhancer 2 [.48] 31,200¥
 Wired Reflexes 2 [3] 149,000¥
[Alpha] Comlink [.16] Hermes Ikon 5 6,000¥
[Alpha] Cybereyes 3 [.32] 12,000¥
  Flare Compensation 1,200¥
  Low Light Vision 1,800¥
  Vision Magnification 2,400¥
  Image link
  Smart Link 4,800¥
  Thermographic vision 1,800¥
[Alpha] Cyberears 1 [.16] 3,600¥
  Damper 2,700¥
  Sound Link 4,800¥
  Spatial Recognizer 4,800¥
[Alpha] Datajack [.08] 1,200¥
[Alpha] Full Obvious Cyberarm Left [.8] 18,000¥
  Strength Enhancement 3 23,400¥
  Gyromount 7,200¥
  Armor Enhancement 2 7,200¥
  Hand Blade 3,000¥
[Alpha] Muscle Augmentation 2 [.32] 74,400¥
[Alpha] Bone Density Augmentation [.48] 12,000¥
[Alpha] Muscle Toner [.16] 38,400¥

Gear
Ares Alpha 2,650¥
Airburst Link 600¥
Shock Pad 50¥
Gas Vent 3 600¥
APDS (500) 6000¥
Spare Clips (5) 20¥

Enfield A5-7 1,100¥
Gas Vent 3 600¥
Shock Pad 50¥
Smart Gun System, External 200¥
Explosive Rounds 800¥
Spare Clips (5) 100¥

HK 277 730¥
Spare Clips (5) 100¥
APDS (100) 1,200¥

Ares Predator V 725¥
Spare Clips (5) 100¥
Conceal Holster 150¥
Quick Draw Holster 175¥
APDS (100) 1,200¥

Flash Pak (3) 375¥
HE Grenade (5) 500¥
Flash Bang (5) 500¥
Thermal Smoke (2) 120¥

Armor Clothing 450¥
Chameleon Suit With Thermal Damping 2,200¥
Armor Jacket 1,000¥
Lined Coat 900¥
Street Clothing, Misc 300¥
Helmet 100¥
Riot Shield 1,500¥

Fake SIN 4 10,000¥
Fake License 4 Conceal Carry 800¥
Fake License 4 Ares Predator V 800¥
Fake License 4 HK 277 800¥

Gas Mask 200¥
Glue Sprayer 150¥
Glue Solvent 90¥
Medkit 6 with (1) extra Supplies 1,600¥
Trauma Patch (1) 500¥
Stim Patch 6 (2) 300¥
Antidote Patch (1) 300¥
Low Lifestyle 2,000¥
Standard Cred Stick (5) 25¥
Silver Cred Stick (2) 40¥
Gold Cred Stick (1) 100¥

Vehicles
Suzuki Mirage 8,500¥


Thanks for taking a look!.

Again, I appreciate the help on this one. It's been a loooooooong time since I've created a runner, so if you see any "must have" gear items, an essential Skill I missed or any errors in my calculations,  please let me know so I can fix it.

(Thanks, Crunch!)

Notes on Attribute Points Spent:
Spent B1, A7, R4, S1, C0, I4, L1, W2 = 20 Points

[Csjarrat]

You have an absolute stack of skills put into your primary role. Which is fine, but outside of combat, there isn't really much for you to do. Taking so many duplicate skills (throwing, pistols, shotguns, rifles etc) isn't ideal, I'd say maybe pick a primary weapon skill, sidearm and one close combat skill.
IE: automatics 6 (+2), pistols 3, unarmed 3 and put the rest of those points into something else.
Perception is also very high, you could lower this by 1 and put that skill point into a specialisation of a lesser skill for a bigger boost eg: heavy weaps 1 (+2 grenade launcher) and offset the loss to your perception with gear: contacts with image enhance or something would work well.

[Stepping Razor]

Thanks, Csjarrat! Skills are exactly what I'm mulling over at the moment! Any particular ones you could suggest that come up frequently that might round her out a bit more? What I cobbled together was my concept of a character who just left Military/Paramilitary Service. Someone who pretty much only knew "the job" and not much else.

[Csjarrat]

Well I could see that an infantryman could forseeably have training in fieldcraft, so tracking/survival/navigation would be fluffy. For more oomph, armourer, first aid, locksmith, hardware would work. Intimidation/negotiation is always very useful and I'd imagine that front line infantry might utilise small recon drones for scouting as rigger resources would be thinly spread.
You can control recon drones via a conmlink which allows you to do legwork if that's something you'd find interesting.

[Stepping Razor]

Thanks again! As I get a clearer picture of where she's been/where she's going, I may factor those in. Quick Rules Question if you don't mind: At the end of character creation/spending leftover Karma,  how much Karma does it cost to add a Specialization to the skills I've already purchased? I've dug around and all I can see is 1 Point of Karma per specialization.  Also, what is the long term drawback for a specialization as far as advancing the main skill it's derived from? Does it add an additional cost, or does it simply keep augmenting a Skill as it goes up using normal Skill Advancement rules without a penalty?

Thanks in advance!

PS I was actually curious if I could use Recon Drones but haven't dedicated time to reading the Rigging section yet.

[Crunch]

It's 7 karma for a specialization, or 1 skill point during the skills portion of chargen.Typically you would be better served to sacrifice skill points for specialties in chargen, and then buy the skills back up with karma. (A specialty costs 7 karma, while raising a skill from 0 to 1 only costs 2 and from 1 to 2 costs 4.)

You might take a look at your mods.

 Some of the stuff you have would be easily duplicated through non cyber processes. Specifically you could do a lot of what you're doing with cyber eyes and ears with glasses and earbuds for a fraction of the cost. The implanted comlink is also a questionable expenditure.

Some of the lower essence stuff could probably lose Alpha status once you've dropped a few of those mods as well, which would save you money.

Since you're getting both Aug and Toner you might look into Muscle replacement as an alternative.

I don't know if Reaction Enhancers are giving you enough for the investment of essence and Nuyen. Personally I think I'd drop it.

Skills wise, I think I would drop either Longarms or Automatics. Keep Longarms if you were a SWAT marksman, Automatics if you were just a guy on the SWAT team. I'd drop pistols as well if you keep automatics and pick up a machine pistol.

[Csjarrat]

specialisation is 7 karma, or 1 skill point. best to grab them out of skill points tbh!
no issue with them long term either, you can add multiple specs. they just give +2 dice when appropriate

[sylanna]

Pistols might come in handy in certain situations. They are very easy to conceal and can therefore be brought to locations, where you aren't allowed to carry a weapon at all. Unarmed Combat might be a viable alternative, but I prefer having the possibility for ranged combat.

[Stepping Razor]

@Csjarrat Thanks! I couldn't find it. I "knew" I'd seen it before, but lost it in all the text. Is there a page number so I can bookmark it? Also: I hate PDFs. : P

@sylanna That's why I kept spreading out points over all the firearms that I thought she'd use. I really didn't want to have to default in those, seeing as they were the tools of the trade before she became a runner and can be really useful in different social situations: Pistols for Meets/Public Outings, Shotguns and Automatics for Business. Also, having the unarmed and Pistols makes a decent backup plan.

[Kincaid]

Pistols might come in handy in certain situations. They are very easy to conceal and can therefore be brought to locations, where you aren't allowed to carry a weapon at all. Unarmed Combat might be a viable alternative, but I prefer having the possibility for ranged combat.

Automatics covers machine pistols, so that should be your go-to sneaky option.

Plastic bone lacing is a better choice than bone density 2.  It's more essence-friendly, cheaper, and you get the same number of bonus dice to soaking bullets.  You could also save a lot of money/essence by putting some of your eye and ear -ware into contacts/glasses/ear buds.  Keep the smartlink at alpha, though.  You need to be able to preserve your wireless bonus in high Noise environments.

[Crunch]

@sylanna That's why I kept spreading out points over all the firearms that I thought she'd use. I really didn't want to have to default in those, seeing as they were the tools of the trade before she became a runner and can be really useful in different social situations: Pistols for Meets/Public Outings, Shotguns and Automatics for Business. Also, having the unarmed and Pistols makes a decent backup plan.

Don't get me wrong, I love weapon diversity, but the corrolary is that you end up spending 15 of your 28 skill points on weapon skills. That's not a problem as long as you understand that the characters primary role is Weapon Specialist and their secondary role is Weapon Specialist. Perversely the character loses flexibility by being so flexible.

[Stepping Razor]

Great advice! Didn't even think about Machine Pistols. I'll also think over how I can create a secondary role for her.  As far as after gen specializations; that's too steep for my blood. I'll grab those beforehand for a point a piece. Still not sure about putting my ware on the outside. There's always this nagging paranoia about having it taken away.   Still, that's a great way to free up some Nuyen and Essence. I've been thinking hard about pulling at least the ears to make room for a Reflex Recorder for Automatics. As far as the Automatics Skill goes, I see her as being more of a grunt/soldier than a leader (2 Logic) so Automatic Rifles seems to play to that (this is my rifle, this is my gun).

Thanks again! I'll keep making tweaks as I go along. You've all been incredibly helpful!!!

[Crunch]

After gen specializations can be a great buy depending on how good you are already. Take for instance your Perception skill. To increase it from 6 to 7 post chargen would cost 14 Karma, to add a specialization - say ambushes if your GM would allow it (which I probably would)- would only cost you 7 karma. So post chargen Specialties can be a great way to improve the stuff you're actually already good at relatively quickly. The break even point (where a specializaton is cheaper than improving the skill) is at 3, so if after chargen you wanted to improve your longarms from 3 to 4 because you were finding Shotguns really useful it would be cheaper to take the Shotguns specialization of Longarms than to increase longarms from 3 to 4.

As an aside you could take Pistols 6 and Longarms 6 (dropping automatics and heavy weapons) and specialize in both for the same cost as having all three skills with only one of them at 6. If you're looking for flexibility and concealibility that's a hard combo to beat.
 

[Kincaid]

I think you may have too many points in attributes.  I count +23 (+7 Agility from a base of 2, +3 Body, +4 Reaction, +2 Strength, +0 Charisma from a base of 3, +4 Intuition, +1 Logic, and +2 Willpower).  You should be at +20, assuming you're Attributes B.

A potential 28/2 skill breakdown.  There are lots of ways to go with this, as Crunch points out.

Automatics 6
Heavy Weapons 2
-Grenade Launchers +2
Sneaking 4
Etiquette 2
-Military +2
Unarmed Combat 4
Perception 4
Longarms 4*

Athletics Group 2

* What scenarios do you see a shotgun being more useful than either an assault rifle or SMG?  Your Enfield does a tiny bit more damage than your Alpha, but can't do suppression fire and doesn't have a handy grenade launcher.  The Alpha also has a significant advantage when it comes to range.

[Crunch]

I think you may have too many points in attributes.  I count +23 (+7 Agility from a base of 2, +3 Body, +4 Reaction, +2 Strength, +0 Charisma from a base of 3, +4 Intuition, +1 Logic, and +2 Willpower).  You should be at +20, assuming you're Attributes B.

I think he may actually supposed to be Agi 8(9) as 8 would be the max agi for an elf with esceptional attribute and he has Muscle Toner, but I'm not seeing anything to account for the 9(10). That would put him at 22 which he could have reached with Karma expenditure (Logic 1 to 2 for 10, Willpower 2 to 3 for 15)