[masei]

Hello, this is my first time playing Shadowrun and was looking for some input into creating my character. My party already consists of a face, a decker, a melee character and a generic shooter character. With my character I was looking to making him be of an infiltrator type role such as breaking and entering silently and things of that nature. Would this be a useful direction to go in? If it isn't any trouble could someone take a look at my character sheet to see if I haven't missed anything that would be important and if I have the required skills to succeed in this role?
Thanks a lot for the help
HTML: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxVN9ORKolcNZHV5N1pNalFlbnc
Chummer5a: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxVN9ORKolcNa3JFZHhPYXRZdjg

[dposluns]

I've never built a character on this end of the spectrum but a few general tips for you:

• There is some really basic min-maxing you can do, if you want. Get rid of skills you only have one or two points in and increase skills that are important to what your character does up to 6. Why? It costs 2 karma and a day of downtime to learn a new skill (i.e. get it at 1) after chargen, but to push an existing skill from 4 to 5 takes 10 karma and 5 weeks(!) of downtime, and to go from 5 to 6 takes 12 karma and 6 weeks. You've got 2 skill points invested in swimming which is something you may never even do, whereas you will presumably be sneaking all the time and it's fundamental to your character that he's good at it. Remember that you can still default on untrained skills (roll the attribute - 1 dice). From the ones you've selected, I'd consider cutting Escape Artist, Free-Fall, Gymnastics, Running and Swimming. (If any of those are skill groups I'd consider investing in just one group for the same reason.)
• The same min-maxing philosophy applies to your attributes. Does your character actually need Charisma? (That's what the Face is for, after all.) That second point of Charisma would be 10 karma/2 weeks after chargen, but for that same attribute point you could increase your Agility (which is super-important to your character) from 5 to 6, which would otherwise cost 30 karma and 6 weeks.
• In the same vein, you're trained in 3 different types of combat... do you really need all three of them? Wouldn't you rather be really good at one (maybe two if situationally appropriate)?

The min-maxing stuff is really a personal choice; on the one hand it may be putting gameplay ahead of the roleplay but on the other hand I feel like you want your character to be good at the few main things they're supposed to be good at.

Does your group have anyone magical in it? (Maybe the face or the melee guy?) You might want to consider being an Adept. They have a bunch of powers available to them that might be complementary to this kind of character. You should also really consider having someone in the group with Astral Perception to be aware of magical threats.

This character also feels light on the actual infiltration abilities. He can pick locks, but how does he deal with other types of barriers to entry? Can he take out or distract a guard without raising the alarms? Or steal his keycard without him noticing? This thread talks about the different kinds of locks and some of your options: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/41zq52/be_and_infiltration_rules_aka_just_call_the/

Again, this kind of character isn't really my wheelhouse (I'm a mage builder) so take it for what it's worth.

[dposluns]

A couple other thoughts I had:

• The best way to survive damage in Shadowrun is to avoid taking it. To this end, it's good that your Reaction and Intuition are relatively high so you can defend well. Thanks to Synaptic Boosters your initiative will be high, which means you've got the option to go full-defense when necessary and still act in combat. Since your Willpower is pretty low, consider the Agile Defender quality which will let you go full-defense using your Agility stat instead of Willpower. (I know I advised you to ditch Gymnastics but it DOES let you perform a dodge maneuver against incoming melee attacks which is also pretty handy.) In a min-max build I would gladly increase my Intuition stat at the expense of other secondary stats (strength, charisma, logic), as this not only affects initiative and dodging but a bunch of important active skills like Perception.
• Every 2 points in Body increases your physical condition monitor by one, so you may want to land that on an odd number instead of an even number to maximize your benefit there. (Body is also your main stat for soaking damage you can't avoid, so it never hurts to have more of it.)

[Kuirem]

The best way to survive damage in Shadowrun is to avoid taking it. To this end, it's good that your Reaction and Intuition are relatively high so you can defend well. Thanks to Synaptic Boosters your initiative will be high, which means you've got the option to go full-defense when necessary and still act in combat. Since your Willpower is pretty low, consider the Agile Defender quality which will let you go full-defense using your Agility stat instead of Willpower. (I know I advised you to ditch Gymnastics but it DOES let you perform a dodge maneuver against incoming melee attacks which is also pretty handy.) In a min-max build I would gladly increase my Intuition stat at the expense of other secondary stats (strength, charisma, logic), as this not only affects initiative and dodging but a bunch of important active skills like Perception.

This seems like a good idea in theory but you really do not want to spend too much on that. If you are going for a high Reaction and Intuition? Well picking a couple of stuff to increase it won't hurt.

What the problem with high defense pool? It is too damn easy to lower! Facing one guy should be fine but even three ganger (rating 1) will shred your defense pool with Auto/Full Burst

[dposluns]

What the problem with high defense pool? It is too damn easy to lower! Facing one guy should be fine but even three ganger (rating 1) will shred your defense pool with Auto/Full Burst

Sure, but what's your alternative there? It's not like your extra point in Charisma is gonna help you out of that jam. I'd say the only recipe is to not get caught in that situation in the first place. Also, try not to be near where grenades or area indirect spells are landing. Not a ton of defenses against those things. Yeah Reaction + Intuition doesn't get you out of every jam possible but at least in our game it's (a). probably one of the most frequent rolls we all do and (b). the one with the most dire consequences if we don't succeed at it. Maybe other tables are different though...