Day 1: Fezzik the Bear
#CharacterCreationChallenge
I’ll start this off with a classic - a tanky Troll Adept, capable of acting as a meat shield to his team and knocking enemies out with his bare hands. It’s a classic for a reason, but there is a risk of it being just a cliche. To shake things up a bit, this character is not going to be the gruff loner or quiet mystic. Instead, he is a happy-go-lucky, cheerful and mostly friendly young man whose love for 20th century flatvids (i.e. movies) inspired his street name. He is also following the Bear Mentor Spirit, which is as much about healing and protecting others as about fighting.
Wait, what’s that Shadowrun thing you are talking about?
In case you are reading this without knowing about Shadowrun, it is a Pen&Paper roleplaying game set in the later half of the 21st century, in a cyberpunk setting where megacorporations rule over sprawling, neon-lit megacities,, nation states have fractured, and cybernetic implants and augmentations are commonplace. Oh, and also, magic returned a while ago, so there are Elves, Dwarves, Orks, Trolls, wizards and dragons hanging around. At least one of those dragons owns a megacorporation which is much better than a classic hoard of gold. Player characters are Shadowrunners, basically criminals for hire working for those in need of deniability or sometimes those with no access to legal channels.
Character Creation Overview
As with almost all the characters I will create as part of this challenge, I will be using the standard priority method from the core book.
The 6th edition rules have a few quirks that are important to keep in mind, and some important differences to previous editions.
Priorities
First of these is that no Metatypes have minimum attribute ratings above 1 anymore, so even a Troll or Ork starts with Body and Strength at one until you spend attribute points. They have higher maximums, but you don’t get them for free. That’s why you can be any metatype at Priority E (the lowest).
On the other hand, The metatype priority gives “Adjustment points” that can be used for special attributes (Edge, Magic and Resonance), but also for any attributes the character has an increased maximum for - in other words, my adept can use his adjustment points for Magic, Edge, Body and Strength. However, going up one priority step usually only gives 2-3 adjustment points (for some reason, going from D to C gives 5). Going up a step of Attributes gives 4-8 points, with the step from B to A giving the most.
The Magic priorities give a straight 1 point of Magic or Resonance per step (E, of course, means the character is entirely mundane). For technomancers, or characters that cast spells, there is an extra benefit of higher priorities, because the number of spells or complex forms they get depends on their unadjusted Magic/Resonance, but importantly, this does not apply to Adepts who get adept powers based on their final Magic value. In other words, for an adept, it is strictly best to have Magic at priority D, and increase the Magic rating with Metatype adjustment points.
On the other hand, to make the most of a Troll and their high Strength and Body maximum (both of which we want to use), we need LOTS of Attributes, so we are putting Attributes on A, and Metatype on B (because the adjustment points are as good as attribute points).This leaves C and E. We want some skills to cover the basics, while gear is not very important for an unarmed adept, so our final priority spread is:
A: Attributes (24)
B: Metatype (Troll, 11 Adjustment Points)
C: Skills (20)
D: Magic (Adept, Magic 1)
E: Resources (8,000 Nuyen)
We will need a bit more than the 8,000 Nuyen, but we have customization Karma for that.
Attributes
Shadfowrun has three types of Attributes - Physical, Mental and Special Attribute points. There are four of each of the first two kinds and three special attributes, although most characters only have one (Edge), and at most one of the other two (Magic or Resonance, but never both). We start with one point in each of the Physical (Body, Agility, Reaction and Strength), and Mental (Willpower, Logic, Intuition and Charisma) attributes, as well as in Edge and Magic.
First, we want to max out Magic, which goes up to six. Only adjustment points can be used for this, so 5 of our 11 points are gone right away.
Next, we look at the “standard” attributes (Mental and Physical). We only get to max out one of them. As much as we want Body and Strength up high, Agility is just as important for combat, and our maximum there is only 5 for a Troll, which costs us 4 of our 24 normal attribute points. We also want a decent Reaction, Intuition and Willpower (the former two determine Initiative, the latter is used to resist drain for some adept powers alongside Body), so we increase them to 4 each, costing us another 9 attribute points, with 11 left. We put one each into Logic and Charisma (we don’t want them to be rock bottom). Now we only have Body and Strength (and Edge) left, and those are the stars of the show. Because we maxed out Agility, we have to stay one point below the normal maximum for a Troll (which is 9). 7 of our remaining 9 attribute points go into raising Body to 8, the last 2 and 5 of the 6 remaining adjustment points do the same to Strength, and that leaves us with one adjustment point that can go into Edge, raising it to 2 - less than I would prefer, but something’s gotta give. So our final - for now - is:
Body 8
Agility 5
Reaction 4
Strength 8
Willpower 4
Logic 2
Intuition 4
Charisma 2
Edge 2
Magic 6
Skills
We have 20 points of skills, which looks like a lot at first but we will use them up quickly.
Similar to attributes, only one Skill can be maxed out at this stage, and the maximum for each is 6.
The most important skill for an unarmed fighter is Close Combat, so that gets 6 points.
Other important Skills are Athletics, Perception and Stealth, and nice-to-haves are Biotech, Firearms, Influence and Piloting.
That’s seven skills with only 14 points to go between them - not a lot. In 6E, Athletics covers throwing things and projectile weapons like bows and crossbows, and we might use something along those lines instead of firearms. Influence isn’t really something we want to focus on with our lower Charisma, but if we put a single point in, we can get a specialisation in Intimidation, and if we take the Muscles Quality from the 6th World Companion, we get to use our Strength instead of Charisma in some situations, so that would be nice. Biotech is basically First Aid and other Medicine, and for a follower of Bear, at least a little knowledge of the healing arts would be suitable. Still, a single point should do, with maybe a specialisation in First Aid later. Piloting is for getting around. Most vehicles in the Shadowrun settings are capable of basic self-driving, so getting from A to B is usually no problem, but again a single point would be nice.
So with one point in each of Biotech, Influence and Piloting, and 6 in Close Combat, we have 11 left for Athletics, Perception and Stealth. Athletics gets the biggest chunk - it’s good for running fast (and as a melee fighter we want to be able to close on targets quickly), dodging incoming attacks, throwing and projectile weapons and a couple of other things. We can’t max it out, but it gets the next best thing, 5 points, leaving us with 6 for the other two.
Perception is useful for anyone - nobody likes to be ambushed. Stealth is also useful for any Shadowrunner. They are called Shadowrunners for a reason, after all. We’ll split the points evenly and get
Close Combat 6
Athletics 5
Perception 3
Stealth 3
Biotech 1
Influence 1
Piloting 1
We also get a few free Knowledge Skills which includes languages. In 6E, normal knowledge skills don’t have ranks and don’t get rolled by themselves - instead, they provide additional information on other tests, and you either have a knowledge skill or not. Languages have different levels, but we’ll ignore that for now. We get one free native language, and one knowledge skill for each point of Logic we have, which is only two. We’re assuming the character is from the default setting of Seattle, so the native language is probably English. One of the knowledge skills, given our backstory, is going to be 20th Century Pop Culture. The other will be Seattle Gangs, because a Troll with few resources has probably had some contact with several of them.
Qualities
Before we move on to Adept Powers and Gear, it’s time to select some Qualities - they can be positive, in which case they cost Karma, or negative, in which case they provide some. Karma, for those new to Shadowrun, is basically the equivalent of XP, and we get a grand total of 50 Karma to flesh out our characters. We can only have a maximum of six qualities, and if we gain bonus Karma, it can net us a maximum of 20 Karma (but that won’t be an issue).
As a Troll, we get a couple of qualities for free and they don’t count against our maximum. Those are:
Dermal Deposits
Dermal deposits means we have chunks of bones in our skin. This gives us one point of armor and makes our unarmed attacks inflict lethal damage. Handy for an unarmed tanky fighter.
Thermographic Vision
We can see infrared light, which is good when trying to find people in the dark.
Built Tough 2
We have an extra two points on our Physical Condition Monitor, in other words, we don’t die as fast. Also handy.
Other qualities we want are:
Mentor Spirit
This costs 10 Karma, and means we get to follow Bear. As a mentor spirit, He provides some benefits (Edge boosts for damage resistance tests are reduced and we get one free level of the Rapid Healing adept power), but there’s a catch - if we or someone under our care takes physical damage, we run the risk of going berserk, which reduces tactical options considerably.
Muscles
For the cost of 7 Karma, we can use Strength instead of Charisma when we can use our impressive physique (mostly for intimidation, I guess, but there might be other situations where it could work). Given we have 8 Strength and only 2 Charisma, this makes us almost viable as a backup Face.
Quick Healer
Halves the time it takes to heal damage - this means we should be able to heal an impressive amount of physical damage in only half a day of downtime, and a decent amount of stun damage in just half an hour. It costs 8 Karma.
High Pain Tolerance
For 7 Karma, we get to reduce our wound penalty by one, to a minimum of 0. This is rather important if we expect to be soaking damage all the time.
With those 4 positive Qualities, we don’t have a lot of room for negative ones that would give us some Karma back. I’ll go for
AR Vertigo
We can’t spend or gain Edge while using Augmented Reality of any kind. This is a serious drawback (who doesn’t want to be able to have a video call with someone while going around their business or having a map overlay in their field of vision while trying to find their way somewhere), but not too much of one in our role. It also explains why we have no points at all in Electronics - the danged things just don’t like us. This gives us 10 Karma.
Impaired (Logic) 2
This reduces the maximum of our Logic attribute by 2, to 4. That’s not a big deal, because increasing attributes to higher levels is expensive and we were likely never going to do that. 4 is still well-above average, we just can’t develop a genius-level intellect. It feels like a bit of a cheat to get 16 Karma for that, but that’s the rules.
All in all, our Qualities cost us a total of 6 Karma points, leaving us with 44 for other customisation options.
Adept Powers
Now we get to what makes an Adept what they are. We have a total of 6 points to spend (some powers cost only partial points), and we get one level of Rapid Healing for free.
We want to get a mix of powers that make us better at dishing out pain, and better at taking it (or not, as it may be).
One of the most useful overall (but also expensive) is Improved Physical Attribute. It costs one point per rank, and gives us an extra point in an attribute. We would like to shore up our Agility further (that reduced maximum Trolls have is pesky), so we’ll put two points in, giving us an effective Agility of 7 unless something somehow blocks our magic.
As much as I’d like to also increase our Strength and Body, we don’t have the points for that, so we’ll leave it for now. Improved Reflexes, on the other hand, gives us not only a point of Reaction per point spent, but also an extra Initiative Die and Minor ACtion per combat round. All this at the same cost as Improved Physical Attribute which could also increase Reaction by the same but nothing else. We’ll take three points of hat, and now we’re down to only one remaining point.
Fortunately, there’s some cheap and useful powers. Pain Resistance and Mystic Armor both cost 0.25 power points per rank. The former further reduces our wound modifiers, the latter provides armor aht is cumulative with worn armor and our dermal deposits, so we take two levels of each of those, and that’s all our points spent. Later in the game we can get more through Initiation but that may take a while.
Oh yes, and that free level of Rapid Healing we got from our Mentor spirits means we get an extra die on healing tests, which s how we recover from damage taken (in half the normal time, thanks to the Quick Healer quality. What this means is that as long as we can rest for half a day, we get to roll at least Body + Body + 1, which is 17 dice - any 5 or 6 rolled heals a point of damage, or about 5-6 on an average roll. Our condition monitor has 14 boxes total, so we could expect to go from almost dead to perfectly fine in less than two days from natural healing alone, and if someone treats us, that goes even faster. Neat, huh?
Gear
And now, to the ugly part. We don’t need much, but the 8,000 Nuyen we start with are even less, and as a Troll, we have a 10% markup on everything because very few things are designed for people 2.5m tall. And somehow we have to fit a lifestyle in there, too, unless we want to live on the street. On the upside, every point of Karma we spend here gives us an extra 2,000 Nuyen, which at our level makes a big difference. The way I do this is I pick all the necessary gear, then work our how much it costs and how much Karma I need to spend. If it is too much, or I have any left (this never happens with low priorities), I’ll adjust it, but usually it works about right.
So what do we need?
Weapons
Normally, you’d want a primary weapon, one or two specialist weapons and at least one hidden backup weapon just in case, but as an unarmed fighter adept, we can do without most of this - we don’t even have to worry about a backup because it’s not like we can be disarmed (unless we are literally disarmed but then we have bigger problems. We do, however, want some kind of ranged weapon just in case, and a bow and arrow is a good choice for a Troll (because both damage and Attack Rating scale with strength, and we have plenty of that). Add 20 arrows (I mean, it’s really just a backup) and we should be good.
Armor
This is a bit more important for a tanky Adept. On the one hand, we want good armor. On the other hand, we don’t want it to stand out too much or cost too much, so at this stage, I am going for a classic Lined Coat (also handy for hiding stuff under). It has a bit of capacity (7 points to be exact) for addons, and since Stun damage is going to be a bit of an achilles heel for us, I am putting 4 of those into Electricity Resistance to avoid being tased. Another 3 go into Chemical Protection in case of acid rain or similar. Finally, I add an electrochromatic modification that lets us switch the color and pattern of the coat at the switch of a button. It’s dirt cheap and doesn’t even cost capacity, and it’s both nice for expressing oneself and for shaking a tail (although as a Troll one literally stands out regardless of clothing, of course).
Identity and Credit (and Lifestyle)
This is an expensive part.We need a fake SIN (System Identification Number) because without one, we can basically not go anywhere or buy anything legally, but they are expensive - a rating 3 one (the lowest to be even vaguely usable) sets us back 7,500 Nuyen. We also want fake licenses of the same rating for any restricted gear and for being an adept, but fortunately the only restricted gear we have is the bow, and the licenses are only 600 Nuyen each.
We also want a decent certified credstick so we can pay and be paid anonymously, but again that is cheap - a gold rated credstick has a capacity of 100,000 Nuyen which should be more than enough and only costs 100.
And finally, we need a lifestyle. Given we are a bit low on Nuyen, but expect to get shot and hit a lot and need somewhere to recuperate, a Low lifestyle seems like an okay compromise - it’s a place of our own that has a lock on the door, four walls and a mostly watertight roof, basic utilities and a bed. That’s another 2,000 Nuyen.
Vehicles
The classic for a Troll would be a heavy motorbike, but that’s just not Fezzik’s style. No, he drives around in a cheap-ish but sleek sports car, a Hyundai Shin-Hyung. It’s 20,000 Nuyen and makes up the single biggest chunk of cash we are spending, but probably worth it.
Other stuff
Random bits and bobs we should also have are, in no particular order:
A Sony Emperor commlink (the cheapest model that does not have “Hack Me!” printed on the side), loaded with a Seattle mapsoft for getting around.
A Bug Scanner and a Tag Eraser so our underwear doesn’t broadcast our location.
Glasses with an Image Link (to display Augmented Reality when we have to) and Flare Compensation so we don’t get blinded by Flashbang grenades.
Earbuds with a basic Select Sound Filter (which can be programmed to listen to specific sounds like sirens or gunshots) and a Spatial Recogniser to help where a specific sound comes from (i.e. where is the guy that is shooting at me?).
Climbing Gear because sometimes the best way to get into a secure facility ios over the wall or from the roof.
A Gas Mask and a rating 6 respirator in case someone tries to tear gas us.
A survival kit because you never know when you have to go off-grid.
A biomonitor and a rating 4 medkit, because we might end up being the team medic.
Adding it all up
The total of all this, before the Troll adjustment, comes to 39,400 Nuyen. Adding in a 10% markup for being a big, big Troll and we have 43,340 Nuyen. 8,000 of that are covered from our starting Resources, the remaining 35,340 set us back a whopping 18 Karma. We could have saved a few points by having a cheaper or no vehicle, but I like the sports car. In the end, we have 660 Nuyen left that we start the game with.
Spending our Karma
With the qualities and gear taken out, we now have 26 Karma left. The first thing we want to do is buy a couple of specialisations for our Skills - these cost 5 Karma each, and get us an effective +2 on the skill when used for the specialisation area. I picked Close Combat (Unarmed), Biotech (First Aid), Influence (Intimidation) and Piloting (Ground Vehicles) - the first gives us a bit of an edge for our primary duty, the other suddenly adds a lot more bang to the rating 1 skills we picked earlier.
The 6 Karma that are now remaining go into a single point of the Electronics skill - I remembered that using a bug scanner needs that, and, you know, underpants broadcasting location is bad. Also useful for looking stuff up on the Matrix and those kinds of things. We have one point left, and that goes into our starting pool - nothing useful to do with it, but it actually carries over into play.
Finishing it up
To finish everything up, we get to choose contacts, and then do some calculations.
Contacts
The people we know who could be useful for us. Each contact has two ratings - Loyalty and Connection. Loyalty determines how much they like us and what they are willing to do for us, Connection determines how much they can do for us. Here is one of the most annoying parts of the 6E system to me: At the start of the game, neither rating can be higher than the character’s Charisma, which basically means we can’t have a competent fixer or know anyone that can get rare/useful gear or information for us. But it is what it is…
We get Charisma * 6 points to spend in total, which is 12, and the easiest way to go about it is 3 contacts with 2 of each rating each. Those are:
Mr Spider, a former Shadowrunner just trying to get his foot in the door as a fixer, but he doesn’t have the best kinds of contacts yet.
Hotshot, an ork and member of the Skraacha gang that is mostly active in the Ork underground - she knows a few people there, and can occasionally get her hands on some gear (or sell it).
Marilyn, a dwarf street shaman and healer. She is a fellow follower of Bear and so the two have a few things in common. She may even be able to point Fezzik towards sources for magical equipment like Foci if he ever has the Nuyen for something like that.
Calculations
Finally, there’s a few things we want to work out:
Attack Rating: This is a new rating in 6E, it is compared to the target's defense rating and determines whether either participant in a combat gets bonus Edge. For unarmed attacks, this is Reaction + Strength, and for us that is a whopping 15 (better than just about any weapon) - only at close range, of course. For the bow, it is 4/8/2 at Close, Near and Medium range, and nothing at Far and extreme.
Defense Rating
Between the Lined Coat, his high Body, the Mystic Armor power and the dermal deposits, we have a defense rating of 21, which is pretty good and can still be improved.
Initiative
Initiative is Reaction + Intuition + 1d6 as a base rating, although our Improved Reflexes power gives us an extra 3d6, so our total is 11 + 4d6. The extra Initiative Dice also means we get additional minor actions, so each round, we have one Major Action and four Minor Actions; the minor actions can be converted into another Major action.
Notable Dice Pools
Unarmed attacks: 15
Archery attacks: 12
Intimidation (if Strength can be used): 11
Piloting ground vehicles: 10
First Aid: 5
Treatment with medkit: 6
Lift/Carry: 12
Drain Resistance: 12 (note we do not currently have any powers that cause drain)
Defend against attacks: 11
Soak Damage: 8
Condition Monitors
Physical: 14 boxes (+16 Overflow)
Stun: 10 boxes
And there we are
The final version of my worksheet can be found here. I may at some point add a proper character sheet if I can find a good editable one, but for now, I hope you enjoyed my Day 1 entry for the #CharacterCreationChallenge
Published at NZDT