[MichelKesin]

Another question from a n00b making his first character.

What is the basic gear that every runner must have out of chargen? From what I gather I need: comlink, a gun, armor, some kinda AR interface, real or fake SIN, gun license. What else?

What are the basic skills that every runner must have? Cause defaulting while you're running away sucks. What i figure: perception, a gun skill, athletics skill group, infiltration. What else?

That's chummers!

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

From the mention of skill groups, I presume you must be playing 5th edition.  But, general advice will be edition agnostic!

Any professional shadowrunner is going to want to have some capability to:
fight
sneak
climb a fence
notice hazards before it's too late

Of course whatever roles you choose to specialize in will add to that list, as well as set your most prominent "must haves" in the gear department.

Some additional tools that every runner will find handy:
Contacts/glasses/goggles with vision enhancements (or cybereyes with same)
earbuds with audio enhancements (or cyberears with same)
subvocal mic (for discreet radio comms with teammates)
Stim Slap patches
Zip ties
some kind of vehicle if you can at all afford it (it's pretty embarrassing if everyone relied on someone else for wheels, and the team has to take the city bus for their shadowrun)
A medkit of some kind (note that in 5e, rating 4+ medkits are big and backpack sized)
a toolkit for your specialized skill(s)
more fake SINs.  Even if they're just rating 1s.  You can never have too many.  And you NEVER want to give out your real SIN while on the job.
Not everyone can afford it, but duplicate lifestyles are SUPER useful.  Maintain separate safehouses/bolt-holes for work, so you don't have to drek where you sleep.
Get some spare weapons that aren't chosen for brute power, but for concealability.  Give yourself options on what weapons to try to bring into high security areas.
Some nice clothes never hurt.  You'll often need to get into places with a dress code.

[Sir Ludwig]

Michel,

SSDR gave a good list.  In addition to the spare living space/gear.  I always recommend a few burner comlinks and a personal and on the job comlink. 

Welcome to the game,
SL 

[Aria]

Duct tape!! Always useful if not on any SR equipment list...

[Mr. Black]

The Con skill. Every movie/TV operative (outside of cold blooded hit men) has a high Con skill. James Bond, Ocean’s Eleventy, Burn Notice, Leverage, etc., all do undercover work, even just to lie to a rent a cop. I have lost count of the number of SR ops blown, and dead/incarcerated characters, that came from Lone Star pulling someone over for a busted taillight, or a guard questioning a “maintenance” worker. I have seen TPK because a player panicked when a security guard asked a player about the latest draft pick for the Seahawks! All because they couldn’t make a half-assed Con check.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The Con skill. Every movie/TV operative (outside of cold blooded hit men) has a high Con skill. James Bond, Ocean’s Eleventy, Burn Notice, Leverage, etc., all do undercover work, even just to lie to a rent a cop. I have lost count of the number of SR ops blown, and dead/incarcerated characters, that came from Lone Star pulling someone over for a busted taillight, or a guard questioning a “maintenance” worker. I have seen TPK because a player panicked when a security guard asked a player about the latest draft pick for the Seahawks! All because they couldn’t make a half-assed Con check.

You're not wrong.

[Reaver]

The Con skill. Every movie/TV operative (outside of cold blooded hit men) has a high Con skill. James Bond, Ocean’s Eleventy, Burn Notice, Leverage, etc., all do undercover work, even just to lie to a rent a cop. I have lost count of the number of SR ops blown, and dead/incarcerated characters, that came from Lone Star pulling someone over for a busted taillight, or a guard questioning a “maintenance” worker. I have seen TPK because a player panicked when a security guard asked a player about the latest draft pick for the Seahawks! All because they couldn’t make a half-assed Con check.

You're not wrong... but...

once you start saying you need one skill, you also have Perception and Athletics and Sneaking that every runner also "must have".  Pretty soon you "must have" a whole assortment, even before looking at the 2-3 skills your archetype focuses on!

Yea, but that's the point of a "Well rounded" character. Some times it means you can't shoot the wings off a fly at 100 meters, but you CAN consistantly put lead into the target, AND bluff, sneak, and spot.


You don't need 75 dice in everything, but you should be rounded enough to roll a single success on a Con or Bluff test. Otherwise, even the best laid plans can goto shit fast.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The Con skill. Every movie/TV operative (outside of cold blooded hit men) has a high Con skill. James Bond, Ocean’s Eleventy, Burn Notice, Leverage, etc., all do undercover work, even just to lie to a rent a cop. I have lost count of the number of SR ops blown, and dead/incarcerated characters, that came from Lone Star pulling someone over for a busted taillight, or a guard questioning a “maintenance” worker. I have seen TPK because a player panicked when a security guard asked a player about the latest draft pick for the Seahawks! All because they couldn’t make a half-assed Con check.

You're not wrong... but...

once you start saying you need one skill, you also have Perception and Athletics and Sneaking that every runner also "must have".  Pretty soon you "must have" a whole assortment, even before looking at the 2-3 skills your archetype focuses on!

Yea, but that's the point of a "Well rounded" character. Some times it means you can't shoot the wings off a fly at 100 meters, but you CAN consistantly put lead into the target, AND bluff, sneak, and spot.


You don't need 75 dice in everything, but you should be rounded enough to roll a single success on a Con or Bluff test. Otherwise, even the best laid plans can goto shit fast.

I edited my post since I was being pretty hypocritical, since just upthread I was all "you need this and this and this, skillwise"   You caught me before I edited!

And yes I agree with you on the principle of "it's better to have 9s in lots of skill pools and 12s in one or two, than having a ton of dice in 1 skill and be crap at everything else".

[Mr. Black]

LoL, you don’t need to max out Con. Just a single point means that in a pinch, you can use Edge. Every character doesn’t need to be a face, just enough to tell a convincing lie to a low level functionary with their finger on a PanicButton...

[CanRay]

Drugs.

All the drugs.