Character Creation Discussion

[saithor]

9 hours ago, Clockwork Writer said:

As I start letting my brain run wild through SR books and remember all the crazy stuff is there anything in particular that you want us to stay away from? It's been a while and I've looked at SR books far more that I've actually played games so not sure which is the stuff that is normally banned or GM's are leery of so figure I'd best ask.

I'm good with most types although I think AI might be difficult to implement.

 

9 hours ago, Ayeba said:

Can I ask you people for some advice? What are the most important skills for a full caster? I don't think I've played a spellcaster since 3rd edition, and that system had no restriction about how many skills could start out at 6. I was thinking Spellcasting and Astral Combat may be the most important; the latter specifically because of my character's dual nature. I'm open for suggestions, though.

Astral Combat isn't a super big thing but is still useful to have just in case. Summoning and Binding would probably be more important as spirits are really good to have and do things with.

 

7 hours ago, Whitehart09 said:

Yeah, Alligator is in Howling Shadows but I do not have access to it and therefor not sure if I should use it.

 

Gator would be fine either as a rebranded Wolf or the one from Howling Shadows that Tiff posted.

2 hours ago, Ayeba said:

Thanks for the advice, @Essex, @Inquisitor D.

Two more questions from yours truly.

1. Can you use skill points to improve the skills granted by Magician/Technomancer pri A or B?

2. Isn't there are a limit to the number of skills you can start with at 5 and 6 at the start of the game? I have a faint memory of it, but I immediately find it in the rulebook.

 

I'd also like to ask the GM for a house rule, @saithor:

Shapeshifters must pay karma to separately improve their animal and metahuman attributes after character creation. Can I kindly ask that you adopt a house rule along these lines: If I want to go from Agility 2->3 on my metahuman form and 3->4 on my animal form, I pay only the higher of the costs, i.e. 3->4, rather than paying for both.

Yeah, that would be fine, just use the highest cost and you don't have to pay for both.

1 hour ago, Sapphic Reiver said:

I swear Saithor, the systems we're interested in should be a venn diagram. :')

 

I might drop an application in, my # of active games on MW has dropped to a very manageable amount as of late; How do we feel about the freaks with SURGE?

Perfectly fine to apply as.

[Inquisitor D]

Oh, @saithor, sorry to bug you but I've got a setting question. Would a representative on the Caribbean League Legislature be okay as a Connection 6 contact? Not sure if that's analogous to a Sprawl Mayor or something a bit higher - the Legislature is influential but going off the document it's more soft power than hard control, right?

[saithor]

5 minutes ago, Inquisitor D said:

Oh, @saithor, sorry to bug you but I've got a setting question. Would a representative on the Caribbean League Legislature be okay as a Connection 6 contact? Not sure if that's analogous to a Sprawl Mayor or something a bit higher - the Legislature is influential but going off the document it's more soft power than hard control, right?

Yeah that would be fine.

[Draidden]

I added the pdf file for Legion in the first post of my submission. I used Chumer5 to make him, but would appreciate if someone more experienced would take a look and see if I messed anything up or if they have suggestions.

 

Edit: Just realized I never chose any connections. Will fix that later.

Edited March 29 by Draidden (see edit history)

[Ayeba]

6 hours ago, Inquisitor D said:

As far as I'm aware, you can indeed use skill points to improve the 'granted' skills. Never found a rule prohibiting that. And I don't know of anything limiting skills that start at 6 - Attributes are limited to only one maxed out, but skills should be free, provided you don't take them above 6.

(You also probably can't use Skill Group points to improve them, but this is shaky 'maybe ask for a houserule' kinda ground. As for limiting 5s and 6s, maybe that was a 4e thing? You've got me curious now...)

EDIT: AHA! Yep, from 4e core

p75

The maximum skill rating for starting characters is either one skill at Rating 6 (with the rest at Rating 4 or less) or two skills at Rating 5 (with the rest at Rating 4 or less). Your character cannot start with both one Rating 6 skill and two Rating 5 skills.

 

Excellent detective work. You really live up to your name.

3 hours ago, saithor said:

Yeah, that would be fine, just use the highest cost and you don't have to pay for both.

Wonderful! Now I just need to figure out all the details. I had forgotten how many choices I need to make to create a Shadowrun character. Gotten too used to creating D&D 5e characters, which is like ... 5-8 choices at level 1? Lineage, class, maybe a subclass, background, skills, and spells and you're good to go.

Edited March 29 by Ayeba (see edit history)

[Havelock]

I have opened chummer 5-6 times now, fooled around just a little bit, then tossed it all in the bin....

[Draidden]

@TheBard101 Just curious, but how did you use 2 B's and 2 E's? I thought you could only use each letter once. Not saying you are wrong, just asking so I can learn.

 

Quote

A: Resources (450,000 Nuyen)
B: Skills (36 skill points/5 skill group points)
B: Attributes (20 stat points)
E: Race (human, 1)
E: Magic (Jack and Squat type of Mundie)

 

[Sapphic Reiver]

13 minutes ago, Draidden said:

@TheBard101 Just curious, but how did you use 2 B's and 2 E's? I thought you could only use each letter once. Not saying you are wrong, just asking so I can learn.

 

 

If you use sum to 10 you can use multiple of the same letter, so long as their (totalled) equated numerical value is below the total of 10.

Edited March 30 by Sapphic Reiver (see edit history)

[saithor]

What Sapphic said, we are using Sum to Ten which works based on giving each of the priorities the following numbers

E-0 D-1 C-2 B-3 A-4

As long as your sums of priorities don't go above 10 you are good to go.

[Draidden]

Oh! Something else I have to fix on my character. 😳 Or at least can look at to see if I want to change anything.

Edited March 30 by Draidden (see edit history)

[TiffanyKorta]

Nine times out of ten you'll probably look the same as priority anyways, still you have nothing to lose by checking!

[TheBard101]

It's just easy with a mundane human to use two E's.

 

Plus, I always appreciate people checking my builds and making sure I didn't mess up. Thank you!

[Sapphic Reiver]

2 hours ago, saithor said:

What Sapphic said, we are using Sum to Ten which works based on giving each of the priorities the following numbers

E-0 D-1 C-2 B-3 A-4

As long as your sums of priorities don't go above 10 you are good to go.

 

Speaking of, is there a way to set up chummer to your houserules? If not that might need some canoodling on my part.

 

Also, how centric is the boat/ship stuff going to be? Like... Is this mostly going to be a naval-focused game?

[saithor]

40 minutes ago, Sapphic Reiver said:

 

Speaking of, is there a way to set up chummer to your houserules? If not that might need some canoodling on my part.

 

Also, how centric is the boat/ship stuff going to be? Like... Is this mostly going to be a naval-focused game?

Unfortunately short of adjusting the chummer code itself I don't think so. The best suggestion I can think of is grab your metatype a step lower than you intend to and give yourself the extra special points in career mode.

On the boat focused stuff, getting the boat first is going to be at a pier, and outside of it I'll offer two non-boat options/one boat options for runs each time we start a new one.

[TheBard101]

FYI some of Chummer5's prices are strange.

Example: Cybereye and Cyberear vision/audio enhancements are listed at 4000¥ per rating. However, the book on p. 444 and 445 show them at 500¥ per rating. Kind of a huge difference. This is all over the place for the cyberware especially. Anyone have any idea why the book prices are so different from the online lists?