Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Warden Drake on <06-16-20/2154:36>

Title: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <06-16-20/2154:36>
Hey, guys.  Friend of mine was looking through the list of characters; he noticed the drake character option, and now he really wants to make one.  Problem is, the karma requirements and the whole "wanted" thing is making him a bit on edge.  We were actually planning a story involving the drake character, about the character learning to live in the shadows and having to flee from the mega-corps; like you guys said, drakes make for some interesting story opportunities, and yes, our whole group is more-or-less on board with the campaign.  We're still deciding on the characters, though, which leads to...

Do you guys have any suggestions for the Drake character's class and/or weaponry, and any suggestions about dealing with the whole karma situation?  About the only requirements are:

The character is/was a human male. 

Western drake design. 

No homebrew; we prefer to keep things as close to the book as possible. 
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Reaver on <06-16-20/2249:56>
First, do you have the books yet to follow along?
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <06-16-20/2325:21>
Not quite yet; sorry for the continued inconvenience, but this past few weeks have been rough, I'm actually getting enrolled back into college, and I haven't had the time nor the money to head up to the store a pick up the books.  However, I have been able to find a number of different internet pages and posts that give me an idea of what to expect, like shadowrun.net; I'm pretty sure I can follow allow at least somewhat decently. 
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Reaver on <06-17-20/0058:09>
Right.....

So reading up again on Drakes so I got this straight, The first thing you have to figure out is IF this character is going to be awakened or not.
Personally considering that Cyberware does NOT work when in Drake form, and Drake form can not accept cyber, it may be wise to go awakened.


Building a Drake is like building any other character. Assign your Priorities as normal.

Since this is going to be a human, that at least makes your meta-type pick easy (E)

Don't bother to spend you extra Karma yet, as this would best be spent on Drake critter abilities from Howling shadows.

Use your 25 Positive Karma on Drake abilities, Be careful in your neqative karma picks, as some could really cripple you....

Don't forget you gain the "Wanted" negative Quality for FREE (you gain no karma for it).
Add on the Drake Quality for 75 karma (This  WILL put you into a deficit. This is the ONLY time you are allowed to carry over negative karma. Explained later)

Skills will be a function of the Drake's archtype.. is he a awakened? used a Muscle? A face? There is no real limits on what a drake can be...


Buy your equipment, pick your contacts and you are set to go...


AFTER  You have paid off the 75 karma deficit, you can now access and use your Drakeform and Drake abilities... (keep in mind the average karma award for a mission is 6 to 10 karma....)
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Michael Chandra on <06-17-20/0140:21>
Honestly, with a Drake, wouldn't Lifestyle Modules be a better fit for the group?
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <06-17-20/0744:18>
Thank you guys for the replies so far; again, I am deeply spry I don't have the books yet; make no mistake, if I could get the books, then I would, but real life keeps throwing shit at me, and I have to deal with that first.  To be fair, we aren't exactly going to be playing for a while; our town is still more-or-less under lockdown from the whole virus debacle, and all of the riots have been getting everyone paranoid.  We haven't had any cases yet, but all of my friends' families have been treating this whole thing rather seriously. 

Concerning the drake; we've already got the basic idea of our characters; I have four other friends, myself as the GM, and we have a Dwarf Decker, Ork Street Sammy, Elf Mage, Changeling Fixer, (My guy; he's more or less just a plot NPC) and this Human Drake.  We're still working out the finer details, but we are trying to build around the Drake's class and traits.  Obviously, cyberware is out, (thanks for the tip, Reaver) so I suppose some thing magic focused would be the best choice?  Any tips? 

(Yes, we are a bit snowflakey, but my friends and I tend to prioritize fun and chaos over actually playing the game seriously; I understand the value in min-maxing, but I admit, we try to play these games to relax.)

Again, sorry I don't have the books; I'm trying to the best of my ability. 
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Michael Chandra on <06-17-20/0754:58>
I'd recommend a B&E Adept then, since you got plenty of reasons to sneak as Drake. Initiative is expensive, so maybe the Elf Mage can cast Increase Reflexes or they can use combat drugs instead? Get some sneaky powers, Attribute Boost (Agility) 1 and Attribute Boost (Reaction) 1, Improved Ability on a weapon skill and sneaking?
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: adzling on <06-17-20/1811:07>
i'd go adept with this chappy

ill take a crack at a sample build for you tonight

any thing your player wants besides drake?

like what role is he going to fill in the party?
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <06-17-20/1859:15>
Our group is going to be a bit of a general "mirrorshade" setup; i.e., we're going to try and remain in stealth as much as possible, only fight/kill if we absolutely have to; lower body count means better pay, if I remember correctly.  That being sad, we are trying to plan ahead, and to always try and have a potential "Plan B" if things go south.  (Yes, I am aware that every situation will have curveballs, but it never hurts to at least try to plan ahead, right?) 

To that end, our squad is kind of a "prepare for the worst, hope for the best," kind of group; the Street Sammy is for combat, Mage is for fooling guards (stealth) and crowd control (loud), Decker is for scouting the area (stealth) and causing distractive chaos Watch_Dogs-style (loud), and the Fixer is there to get the jobs, check the info, find the right gear, and try to make sure the Johnson is not trying to dick us over. 

The drake, though, we still don't have a decent build for; aside from being a human-turned-western-dragon, we don't really have anything concrete nailed down for this guy yet.  The stats make it somewhat decent for combat, but combat is supposed to be a last resort, and a sign that everything is going to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly.  Our group seems to have all of the major bases covered, unless I'm missing something; you guys mentioned making this drake an adept; are there any roles that we're missing?  I'm aware we are missing a rigger, but none of us have any interest in playing one, and I don't think a drake would be the best at driving a car. 

That does leave an amusing mental image, though; you have these three random guys crammed into the car, being chased by corporate security, and there's this giant green dragon crammed into the passengers seat, desperately trying to drive the getaway vehicle after a heist goes south.  Saint's Row shit right there. 

(By the way, I did get the terminology correct, right?  Pink Mohawk is going loud, Black Trenchcoat is going dark, and Mirrorshade is maintaining a balance between the two, for what I understand.) 
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: adzling on <06-22-20/1938:06>
i think most suggestions were to build a drake adept infiltrator..
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <06-23-20/2321:45>
Alright, I'll keep that in mind; anything specific?  Don't feel compelled to rush, btw; we're not going to be playing for a while anyway. 
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Michael Chandra on <06-24-20/0203:27>
There's tons of possible utility Powers. You likely start at Magic 6 so 6 PP, each Initiation can earn 1 PP instead of other Metamagics, and Qi Foci (0.25 PP, 2 karma, 3k nuyen, per Force) are also a long-term option to get more Adept Powers, for example in the form of tattoos. I made a list of useful ones for infiltrating.

- Attribute Boost [Agility]&[Reaction] (0.25/L each) to temporarily boost your stats, most people go for rank 1 so the drain is easy to resist
- Cloak (0.25/L) vs Detection Spells
- Combat Sense (0.5/L) to boost defense and to always have Perception vs Surprise situations
- Cool Resolve (1.0/L) for better resisting social skills
- Danger Sense (0.25/L) to boost Surprise Tests, but likely attributes are high enough this isn't needed
- Eidetic Sense Memory (0.5) to memorise all senses, and to photo-read
- Enhanced Perception (0.5/L) for bonus dice on Perception (and Assensing if you take the skill and Astral Perception, which is 1 PP)
- Facial Sculpt (0.25/L) for better disguising
- Hang Time (0.25/L) for better climbing and temporarily magically gecko'ing yourself onto surfaces
- Improved Ability (0.5/L), to boost a skill, such as Sneaking
- Improved Reflexes (1.5/2.5/3.5) is awesome, but given how many utility powers there are, I'd use combat drugs instead
- Keratin Control (0.5) to rapidly grow hairs/nails
- Light Body (0.25/L) for easier jumping and less falling damage
- Melanin Control (0.5) for changing your skin color
- Motion Sense (0.5) for magical detecting people nearby
- Nimble Fingers (0.25) for a Palming bonus and making some combat actions Free instead of Simple
- Stillness (0.25/L) to be harder to spot by audio/thermographic
- Three-Dimensional Memory (0.5) to memorise an area and recall it in super-detail later on so you could for example map a scene then sneak in later
- Traceless Walk (1) to not leave traces or make contact-sound when walking, immune to pressure sensors
- Wall Running (0.5) to run up a vertical surface a limited distance, or run across a vertical surface with a Sprint
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Ixal on <07-17-20/0517:00>
Late to the party.
I also tried a drake infliltrator, but that campaign was very short lived. My thought behind was that being a drake allows you to get into areas unarmed and then change into a combat form.
Downside of that sadly is that when you do that the company you run against will also know your human face unless your decker managed to scrub the camera data.

Drakes are simply so karma hungry. Not only for paying off the initial debt, you also need to initiate and get masking as soon as possible (which is why a drake should really be awakened, but those are in itself karma hungry archetypes). And to get the more useful drake abilities (or just want to be a drake for more than 30 seconds) you again have to pay even more karma.

Don't forget that you need to pay more for armor (and clothes?) when you want to shift in it. And as an infiltrator, especially for social infiltration, you will need a large wardrobe. So either be a tailor/armorer yourself or have a good and discrete one on call.
Title: Re: Creating a (serious) drake PC...
Post by: Warden Drake on <07-26-20/1424:54>
Sorry for being so late to reply; been a while since I've been able to do anything Shadowrun-esqe. 

It sucks that Drakes are so karma-hungry and the downsides are so severe; I kinda hope that Drakes get a possible "rework" of sorts in a future update, like Wildemount was for the Dragonborn in D&D.  Still, I'll keep this data in mind, and (hopefully) find a way to make a solid drake character in the future; our group's more about the possible story ideas and general shenanigans we can get up to in games; we play for the experience and for fun, even at the cost of overall seriousness. 

Thanks for the replies; I'll leave the topic open if anyone wants to contribute anything else.