Character Creation Discussion

[saithor]

For all questions about character creation. For your character, please start a new thread in this section of the forums.

[saithor]

For people wondering what I meant by the terms Pink Mohawk in the ad

Pink Mohawk-style games emphasize style over realism, allowing for things like big, bombastic battles where the lead flies thick in the air and with the right dice rolls runners can perform actions that might not be technically possible in the real world (or even the reality of the Shadowrun world). Characters tend to be long on style, make a lot of wisecracks during combat, and take a lot more risks because they know that the heroes (almost) always survive in the end, even if they don’t win. The name comes from the art style prevalent in the earliest editions of the game, where many of the archetypical characters had a “bigger” but less realistic style than more modern characters. In the game world, the change could easily be chalked up to fundamental shifts in society: things were different in 2050 than they are in 2075, just as they changed from the 1960s to the 2010s.

[Ayeba]

Color me interested.

Unfortunately, I haven't played Shadowrun in a long while, and mostly 3rd edition and some 4th. I bought the 5th edition core rulebook, but never played it. Will have to look through the rules of character creation and see what I can dig up.

Apart from the core rulebook, which other books are commonly used in character creation? I tend to lean towards magic, but I've also like technomancers -- which is sort of also magic.

Also cool to see a fellow amateur writer. I have an unfinished (abandoned) novel on RoyalRoad. My current one is in progress offline, so I can go back and edit earlier chapters. I found that publishing chapters consecutively don't work well for me in the long run; at several points I have run into issues where I need to make a major change in earlier chapters. Not a great reader experience. I do like the feedback that publishing online can provide, but sadly I can't have both.

[Ayeba]

I'm always tempted by cuteness, and I see that pixie and shapeshifters are both options. I kind of want to recreate an old 3rd version fox shapeshifter mage I played in my youth, or at least something along those lines.

To that end, I have some specific questionq. I found that shapeshifters are no longer dual-natured... or are they? According to the errata, they are. Dual-nature can be a crippling weakness if the GMs want it to be. The character is constantly lightning up the astral space and attracting attention from spirits even before anyone has started throwing spells around. Not to mention wards; if it's anything like 3rd edition, a ward can potentially keep a dual natured character from sticking with the rest of the group, leaving them stranded outside. Or knock them out downright -- an elevator trip through a ward is not a pleasant experience.

I don't mind these disadvantages. To me, they can be cool roleplaying challenges. The question is... do you, as a GM, mind? If you feel questions like this give you a headache, let me know and I'll abandon this train of thought.

It is also a question of how effective you as a GM want/expect the players to be. This character would be useful as a support/astral scout to the group, but is pretty far from the what min-maxed character can achieve. If you expect the shadowrunners to be a professional, effective group, this character doesn't fit in there.

I'm also wondering how viable (fatal) it is to spend most of the time in animal form. Regeneration is nice and all, but low body and no armor means that a combat that provides no cover to hide behind is an extremely deadly place to be. The lack of speech can be somewhat mitigated with Minklink (core book p871), but it'd be even better if an area version of the spell exists.

I have more character specific question, but they are moot if you're not very keen on shapeshifters at all. I also haven't decided for certain that it is what I want to play -- playing a pixie is also tempting.

[Lwmons]

Got a few concepts I'm debating between. Purrloin, my catgirl cat bugler adept, Double Down, my extremely eccentric face/mage, Esmerelda, throwing adept by night but birthday magician by day, or, and god help me for this one, Satyrical, a character who originated as a thought experiment but has a top speed of 214 MPH on foot without sprinting.

[Ayeba]

4 minutes ago, Lwmons said:

Got a few concepts I'm debating between. Purrloin, my catgirl cat bugler adept, Double Down, my extremely eccentric face/mage, Esmerelda, throwing adept by night but birthday magician by day, or, and god help me for this one, Satyrical, a character who originated as a thought experiment but has a top speed of 214 MPH on foot without sprinting.

Just got to say; I love the names.

Is the catgirl a shapeshifter, or something else? It sounds like you're extremely well versed in 5e rules, and I may need some help getting everything right.

[Lwmons]

16 minutes ago, Ayeba said:

Just got to say; I love the names.

Is the catgirl a shapeshifter, or something else? It sounds like you're extremely well versed in 5e rules, and I may need some help getting everything right.

Catgirl is a normal human, just with some cybernetics and bio-sculpting to giver her cat ears, a tail, and claws. It's kind of a staple of 80s cyberpunk that people used to go crazy with biosculpting to make them look like animals or other people.

And I have a decent grasp of 5e. I'd be happy to help where I can. There's a tool you can download called Chummer5 that's probably the best character creator program for the system, probably a good place to start.

[Ayeba]

34 minutes ago, Lwmons said:

Catgirl is a normal human, just with some cybernetics and bio-sculpting to giver her cat ears, a tail, and claws. It's kind of a staple of 80s cyberpunk that people used to go crazy with biosculpting to make them look like animals or other people.

And I have a decent grasp of 5e. I'd be happy to help where I can. There's a tool you can download called Chummer5 that's probably the best character creator program for the system, probably a good place to start.

Brilliant, thanks.

Uhm... which "Use setting" should I use for character creation? Standard seems to only include stuff from the Core book.

[saithor]

1 hour ago, Ayeba said:

I'm always tempted by cuteness, and I see that pixie and shapeshifters are both options. I kind of want to recreate an old 3rd version fox shapeshifter mage I played in my youth, or at least something along those lines.

To that end, I have some specific questionq. I found that shapeshifters are no longer dual-natured... or are they? According to the errata, they are. Dual-nature can be a crippling weakness if the GMs want it to be. The character is constantly lightning up the astral space and attracting attention from spirits even before anyone has started throwing spells around. Not to mention wards; if it's anything like 3rd edition, a ward can potentially keep a dual natured character from sticking with the rest of the group, leaving them stranded outside. Or knock them out downright -- an elevator trip through a ward is not a pleasant experience.

I don't mind these disadvantages. To me, they can be cool roleplaying challenges. The question is... do you, as a GM, mind? If you feel questions like this give you a headache, let me know and I'll abandon this train of thought.

It is also a question of how effective you as a GM want/expect the players to be. This character would be useful as a support/astral scout to the group, but is pretty far from the what min-maxed character can achieve. If you expect the shadowrunners to be a professional, effective group, this character doesn't fit in there.

I'm also wondering how viable (fatal) it is to spend most of the time in animal form. Regeneration is nice and all, but low body and no armor means that a combat that provides no cover to hide behind is an extremely deadly place to be. The lack of speech can be somewhat mitigated with Minklink (core book p871), but it'd be even better if an area version of the spell exists.

I have more character specific question, but they are moot if you're not very keen on shapeshifters at all. I also haven't decided for certain that it is what I want to play -- playing a pixie is also tempting.

Shapeshifter is fine, dual-natured is fine, and we are going pink mohawk so you don't need to be super minmaxed.

[Havelock]

So...will there (possibly) be naval action?

And this "find your own jobs, then your buyer" will be a thing? (Or find other people doing jobs, find their buyers, and then get in on the action).

 

Off to hunt for PC picture screaming "play me!" we go.

[TheBard101]

Ok, I haven't played Shadowrun in forever, but my decker has now been in four games (4e and 5e) that died within the first few sessions. So, am I just bad luck? Or are the GM's too ambitious? I'm curious.

 

If I bring him back in, will he be a curse? hmmm

 

I'm used to making a human or elven decker. I would be nice to be able to actually play him. hehe

[Llyarden]

I'm leaning towards a face-y type of some description, but not really settled on anything yet...

I'm assuming that while the quality limits have increased we still only start with the standard 25 Karma?

EDIT: And a rather niche question - is there any errata/change for the Easy Breakdown weapon mod from Hard Targets? My Chummer has it as not requiring a slot, which makes some sort of logical sense to me since being able to take a weapon apart seems like something fairly integral to the weapon rather than something you glue on the side, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that might be a houserule from another game that I changed in the XMLs and never put back to normal...

Edited March 27 by Llyarden (see edit history)

[Zen Gypsy]

I'm working on a full cyberlimb build, some sort of Corp-Sec consultant who was burned and is now in the Shadows. Build to follow ...

[Draidden]

I have a decker and a thief/assassin I tried playing in a previous game and also suffered the fate of them dying very shortly after they started. Will look them over and see what I decide.

[saithor]

7 hours ago, Havelock said:

So...will there (possibly) be naval action?

And this "find your own jobs, then your buyer" will be a thing? (Or find other people doing jobs, find their buyers, and then get in on the action).

 

Off to hunt for PC picture screaming "play me!" we go.

I do plan on their being naval action in this game, and I'll try to offer a rotating list of job offers from the group to pick their next run from.

 

6 hours ago, Llyarden said:

I'm leaning towards a face-y type of some description, but not really settled on anything yet...

I'm assuming that while the quality limits have increased we still only start with the standard 25 Karma?

EDIT: And a rather niche question - is there any errata/change for the Easy Breakdown weapon mod from Hard Targets? My Chummer has it as not requiring a slot, which makes some sort of logical sense to me since being able to take a weapon apart seems like something fairly integral to the weapon rather than something you glue on the side, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that might be a houserule from another game that I changed in the XMLs and never put back to normal...

In my chummer 5e it says either Mount: Side or Mount: None for it

 

11 hours ago, Ayeba said:

Brilliant, thanks.

Uhm... which "Use setting" should I use for character creation? Standard seems to only include stuff from the Core book.

Go to Tools->Options, and it should provide a list of all the books for you to check or uncheck.