Shadowrun Play > Character creation and critique

Need some help for easy to play Adept

<< < (2/3) > >>

Glyph:
Here's one quick build.  A bit bare-bones outside of swordfighting, but functional.  Like all good melee builds, it includes a ranged skill, because being the best swordswoman in the world doesn't do you any good against someone shooting at you from a third story balcony.

Adept Swordswoman
Race: Elven

BREAKDOWN (400 Points)
Core Attributes: 180
Special Attributes: 75
Race: 30
Active Skills: 106
Qualities: +30
Contacts: 5
Resources: 32
Bond Foci: 2

=Attributes=
Body: 4
Agility: 6 [8]
Reaction: 5 [6]
Strength: 3
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Magic: 6[5]
Edge: 2

Essence: 5.00

=Qualities=
Adept
Allergy - Silver(Uncommon), Moderate
Sensitive System
Spirit Bane - Fire Spirits

=Active Skills=
Blades/Swords: 6[9]/+2
Dodge/Ranged: 2/+2
Infiltration: 3
Influence Skill Group: 2
Intimidation: 2
Perception: 3
Pistols/Semi-Automatics: 4/+2

=Knowledge Skills=
Languages >
English: N
Japanese: 3

Other >
Bladesmithing Background: 4
Gang Identification: 3
Local Area Knowledge: 3
Safe Houses: 2


=Bioware=
Muscle Toner: 2
Reflex Recorder - Blades
Synaptic Booster: 1

=Adept Abilities=
Combat Sense: 5
Counterstrike: 1
Enhanced Perception: 2
Improved Ability - Blades: 2
Quickdraw

=Bound Magical Foci=
Weapon Focus (Katana): Rating 2

=Contacts=
Fixer (Connection: 3/Loyalty: 2)

=Lifestyle and Gear=
34,000 Nuyen left after buying bioware and weapon focus.

Critias:
That's a pretty solid build (not terribly far off from what I'd throw together) -- but it kind of stings to pay the extra points to get Magic up to 6 and then lose 'em from augmentation. 

I might suggest shuffling around just that last point of Magic, and swapping in some Qualities (Martial Arts, from Arsenal, to be specific).  Losing Quick Draw and maybe a level of Improved Ability would free up Magic to drop to 5 (4), you'd have to drop a level of Combat Sense, but that .25 might be fun to put into an improved sense or something (there's ALWAYS someplace cool to spend .25 PP).

The points you free up that way (from dropping Magic) could then be spent on the Martial Arts quality or a maneuver or two, which would turn that +1 die to attack into a +1 DV (it seems like she's slinging enough dice that hitting shouldn't be an issue real often, but an outright DV boost is always nice), turn the Quick Draw adept power into one of several Martial Arts tricks that replicate it, etc, etc.  She might feel a little more like a kung-fu swordfightin' badass with a little more mundane skill backing up the magic.

Just something to think about.  Overall that's a pretty good build, I just cringe whenever I see Magic capped like that, and then lowered again.

Walks Through Walls:
For a beginning player to have to close to use their best weapon can be frustrating at times. Unless your game tends to be different than most of the ones I have run and played in a majority of the combat happens at range. Either she is just going to fire with pistols like everyone else and not get the full effect of the character or struggle to close and feel that she is at a disadvantage. Once you have experience you learn tricks like full dodge while you close move from cover to cover and sneak up on opponents, but starting out usually you are just trying to grasp mechanics has been my experience.

Also I personally don't like buying up magic just to knock it down especially to the max level and paying the 25 pts to turn around and lose it.
I would drop the cyberware/bioware buy the first level of the adept power increase reflexes and get the other .5 pts by lowering combat sense by 1.
The character will still be dropping 16 dice with the sword and be able to do plenty of damage. You could even drop the combat sense by another 1 or two and get a die or two of additional with the pistol to make up for the loss of agility because you can use parry or block very effectively when attacked in melee combat.

Glyph:
You're right about the Magic, Critias.  I guess it's because I usually do unarmed builds, where you need to squeeze every point that you can out.  So you could easily lose the hard max on Magic, dropping combat sense to 4 and losing the quick draw power in exchange for getting it as a maneuver.

Now, for those 25 points, the ultimate powergaming combo would be Arnis de Mano twice (once for +1 DV on Blades, once to do damage on a disarm), Sangre y Acero once (for another +1 DV on Blades), then get disarm, finishing move, iaijutsu, off-hand training, and two-weapons style.

But this is a new player, so instead I would take two levels of martial arts for +2 DV on Blades, taking the iaijustsu maneuver, and raising the base Dodge skill to 4.  Lots of other things you could do with the 25 points, though.

Wayfinder:
I'm personally a fan of the sample characters in the books. Especially for a brand new player to RPGs in general. The part I like best is that they have major holes that after even just a couple of sessions the player is already thinking of how THEY can make a better character.

The real key is to personalize the template for the player. Giving a detailed background, fleshing out motivations, and retailoring knowledge skills give the new player the chance for creativity without flooding them with game mechanics.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page