[PiXeL01]

Our table is returning to Shadowrun and one of the players wants to do a Giant Decker more for flavor than efficiency.

The Giant is a DJ who hacks on the side (or a hacker who DJs as a cover) and isn’t afraid of swinging his huge sword around in times of mayhem.

(Yup, we’re a lot closer to Mohawk than Trenchcoats at our table)

I came up with the following (with all published material available):

Feedback and even other builds extremely appreciated:

Giant Decker (Sum to 10)
C - Attributes (16)
B - Race (troll - 0)
A - Skills (46, 10)
D - Resources (50,000)
E - Magic (mundane)

Body 5/10 > 6/10 (1)
Agility 1/5 > 3/5 (2)
Reaction 1/5 > 2/5 (1)
Strength 5/10 > 6/10 (1)
Willpower 1/6 > 5/6 (4)
Logic 1/5 > 5/5 (4)
Intuition 1/5 > 4/5 (3)
Charisma 1/5
Edge 1/6

Essence 6 -> 5.9

Karma
Giant (-2)
Cash 20,000 (-10)
Edge 1 > 2 (-10)

Positive qualities
Overclocker (-5)
Quick Config (-5)
Perfect Time (-5)

Negative Qualities


Skills
Athletics Group 1
Influence Group 3
Electronics Group 6
Hacking 6 (Spec: Hack on the Fly +2)
Cybercombat 6
Electronic Warfare 6
Blades 6 (Spec: Swords +2)
Locksmith 6
Con
Sneaking

Gear
Squatter lifestyle (1,000)
Erika MCD-1 (49,500)
Datajack (1,000)
Claymore (4,500) w/personal grip (+1 accuracy, 100)
Armored Jacket (1000)

[ShadowcatX]

Drop to skills C and raise resources and/or attributes. There's no real point in loading up on charisma based skills and things like cybercombat (which is a bad skill). Do your hacking and do your sword and forget the rest.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Drop to skills C and raise resources and/or attributes. There's no real point in loading up on charisma based skills and things like cybercombat (which is a bad skill). Do your hacking and do your sword and forget the rest.

While I'd agree that Cybercombat could/should have been linked to more matrix actions to make it a true peer with Hacking, there's still one action that is an integral part of hacking: Data Spikes.  Forgoing that option for a hacker is like building a shadowrunner who'll refuse to use weapons.  Yeah you CAN bend over backwards to find non-violent solutions to problems that are just flatly easiest to deal with through direct force.. but sometimes that will require back-breaking degrees of bending...

Now granted if you're building a decker who'll thump people with his sword during combat scenes you may not care about bricking gear.  It's still the tool for buying more time inside a host after IC starts rolling out.   And besides, your team may prefer you leave thwapping to the sammies and having their decker provide matrix overwatch.  Even still, there can easily be crises where being combat-capable just isn't helping in of itself and switching back to decking would be ideal.  For example, car chases.  Not much a hulking sword swinger can do to contribute there, but since you're a decker you could brick the opposition's car... that'd be immensely helpful.  Even if you don't brick it in one data spike and they switch wireless off to prevent you from finishing it off, cutting themselves off from gridlink and dispatch will help your driver slip them.