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Combat Medic

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Teabeeyea

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« Reply #45 on: <07-29-11/1120:00> »
Bearing in mind that I have yet to play a single game of Shadowrun.....   One thing that I like about it is that it seams you have to "work" at building a "bad" PC.  Note that there is a difference between building a suboptimal PC, and a Bad PC.

UmaroVI

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« Reply #46 on: <07-29-11/1315:33> »
Someone worked really hard at some of the sample characters *coughcough Weapons Specialist coughcough,* then.

Teabeeyea

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« Reply #47 on: <07-29-11/1412:12> »
So you are not a fan of the pre-gens?   ;D

SwampFox

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« Reply #48 on: <07-29-11/1423:22> »
Most of the pre-gens are... odd.  Either their skillsets make no sense, their gear lists don't match their skills, or the BP spent doesn't match the actual BP when you go through the books.  To be honest, when I first started playing Shadowrun, I was shown them as an example of what NOT to do.

Cass100199

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« Reply #49 on: <07-29-11/1426:57> »
They make quick and easy npc's though.
You can't tell me what toys I can play with.

SwampFox

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« Reply #50 on: <07-29-11/1431:54> »
And then when the hothead in the group decides to fight them, suddenly you're scrambling to make them viable in combat.

UmaroVI

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« Reply #51 on: <07-29-11/1434:44> »
Yeah, a lot of the pregens are bizarre in many ways and also suck. The weapons specialist is probably one of the worst. If you pick the WEAPONS SPECIALIST, it is probably because you want to, you know, be good with weapons and shooting people. She isn't, at all - she's one of the worst combatants.

The smuggler is pretty funny too, because you know what she can't do? Smuggle jack or shit across a border. She can do an eeeeeeh job as a VR joystick rigger, but she sure as shit isn't getting past any border crossings with a 2 charisma and no con.

The mages are all built in highly stupid fashions and are all idiots, although it's a bit harder to completely screw up a magician than some of the other concepts so all of them are actually pretty useful (relative to the other sample characters) by dint of being able to summon spirits that are better at life than most of the other characters.

SwampFox

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« Reply #52 on: <07-29-11/1446:52> »
Heh, I actually created an Adept Smuggler and Wheelman not even two games ago.  He was a unique take on the Smuggler route, because he thought he was completely mundane, and that the reason he was such a great driver was because of his personal skills (it was actually due to adept power augmentations).

But yeah, I'm of the opinion that the pregen characters are actually a bit of a sick joke on us by the guys who wrote up the book.

Teabeeyea

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« Reply #53 on: <07-29-11/1812:43> »
Do any of you have a list of VIABLE pre-gen's PC's I can hand out to my group on monday?

UmaroVI

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« Reply #54 on: <07-29-11/1855:50> »
If EVERYONE is playing a pregen, you can do it OK by yanking the ultra shitty people.

The Combat Mage, Drone Rigger, Enforcer, Face (in fairness, only by dint of being the only face), Gunslinger Adept, Hacker, Occult Investigator, Radical Eco-Shaman, Street Samurai, Street Shaman, and Technomancer are all functional characters, in the sense that they have a job and can do it.

The Covert Ops Specialist and Weapons Specialist both have jobs, but suck at them. The Sprawl Ganger I don't know WTF he was supposed to be good at, but he isn't good at anything except sucking and being useless. The Smuggler can't smuggle shit, but is an acceptable getaway driver; however, I don't know how many players want to play 'wait in the van while everyone else goes shadowrunning.' (the drone rigger, by contrast, can send drones along). The Bounty Hunter is not very good at hunting people and even worse at winning fights when he finds them; it's particularly bad because he's similar to the Enforcer but a lot less effective.

There are a few problems of note, though. The Techomancer is just blatantly better at hacking than the Hacker and the Hacker can't do anything else, so if both of them see play the Hacker's player will be sad. The Face is useless at everything but Facing (and the Technomancer and Hacker are similarly matrix-only), so if they see play you'll want an adventure that makes sure their one trick is useful. The Radical Eco-Shaman and the Street Shaman are very similar characters with a lot of overlap; which one is "better" is debateable but you probably don't want them both in a party.

Another thing you should do is look up and write down stuff like:
What do your spells do? (Make photocopies of them for the players)
What are the total armor values of these characters (Write these down)
What are the stats of this gun/vehicle/drone? Write these down too.

Things really go bad if you start mixing the pregens with characters people actually make; pretty much everyone who sits down and decides to make a face will make one who completely embarrasses the pregen Face and leaves him with nothing to do, for example.

I've been working on a set of premade Archetype characters (more with Missions in mind but usable by anyone), but they are not quite done yet. 

Teabeeyea

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« Reply #55 on: <07-30-11/1258:30> »
Thanks for the advice.  Will do.

 

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