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[SR5] Help me with my Face/Infiltrator Character

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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #15 on: <11-23-18/1029:09> »
Thanks, I try to help :)  And I've been having a blast with my infiltrator, so the topic is close to home for me.

I did end up going with a priority array of A) Attributes B) Skills C) Resources D) Race E) No Magic.. and it was largely in thanks to the good advice I got in the thread I linked. What convinced me was the infiltration niche uses just so many skills you not only need a lot of skill points... you can't be good at them all so you need good attributes to be good at something while still only putting a few skill ranks in. 

Thus far I've played this character for 6 missions. The Usefulness of skills I anticipated vs actually used over half a dozen runs:

Sneaking: Used multiple times every mission. Certainly should be one of the things you do best. Still, Sneaking has often been trivialized by the party mage having a spirit put concealment on everyone or the hacker just getting a look inside by hacking the host.
Gymnastics: Used almost every mission, always for climbing.  I figured I might sometimes use it for the Dodge action, but I never have needed to yet.
Palming: Used less often than I had anticipated. I just don't carry around illegal guns so I have little need to hide them. Still I've used it a couple times to pick pockets and discreetly sow peel-n-stick sensors around an office.
Escape Artist: Used once. Thrown out by the GM as a pity offering to let me do something my character is good at.
Free Fall: Never used once in 6 runs. The problem is always noone else has the skill, so any time I'd use it the plan would involve just my character rappelling in and noone wants to sit around and let just one character have all the fun.
Locksmithing: Used once in 6 runs.  Problem is we have a Technomancer and he always wants the job of unlocking doors. Once early in he couldn't handle the host so I got to pick a lock, but since we've been spending some Karma he hasn't had a problem hacking since then, heh.
Hardware: Used once as well.  Not even to bypass a security measure, though. Technomancer wants that job. Team decided we needed a throwaway car so I hotwired one.

Disguise: Due to my augmentations the GM usually doesn't ask me to roll. I have used it once to give someone else a disguise, though.
Impersonation: Haven't had opportunity to use it yet.
Con: Used whenever I'm trying to blend in as opposed to just be completely unseen. And usually I'm trying to just be completely unseen, so I don't use Con a whole lot either. Maybe rolled it 2 or 3 times in 6 runs.
Etiquette: Never needed to use it yet.
Negotiation: Every runner should have this, but aside from assisting the Face at the meet with Mr. Johnson or acquiring gear, I haven't used it.


So given my experience, if I were to build another infiltrator I'd prioritize the skills as:
Get them nice and high: Sneaking, Gymnastics, Perception (and potentially Palming)
Good in theory, but may not need very often in a balanced team: Locksmithing, Hardware, Escape Artist, Free Fall (potentially Palming)
Unnecessary if you want to go full-ninja where you're not trying to interact with people: Con, Disguise, Etiquette, Impersonation

Given half a dozen runs under my belt, I'd say the biggest pain I've endured as the downside of my priority selection was with Race being so low I was stuck with low Edge. Not ideal if you want to do a solo scene where you're off on your own sneaking around a facility without the rest of the team right there with you as backup.
« Last Edit: <11-23-18/1035:54> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.