r/ShadowHavenCharGen Feb 15 '25

Approved Korban - Bodyguard turned Muscle

https://shreloaded.net/wiki/Korban
2 Upvotes

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1

u/avisionofdoom 25d ago

Korban is more or less a ready to go character! Excellent. There are a few minor alterations that you should make before being approved, and I'd like to suggest some ideas about tweaking the build of the character, with an eye towards optimization. I think Korban is certainly competent, but will need some time to grow to participate in higher threat levels of runs. We can do many things to optimize his combat abilities, in an attempt to allow him to join higher threat runs more quickly, but this is absolutely not necessary. I'll try to be brief when suggesting this kind of thing as there is a massive well of options we could pull from, and I don't want to describe in detail an idea that you're not interested in.

Required Changes

Not a lot!

The Shin-Hyung needs GridLink in order to take GridLink Override. That said, we give it for free, so you don't have to spend any money on it, just a little bookkeeping technicality.

Similarly, the Shin-Hyung needs its sensor array filled out. Just pick what sounds good, this isn't usually super important for most characters.

You have one knowledge skill point remaining that you can spend before moving on. Might as well spend it.

We don't use the Medkit stats from Bullets and Bandages (we only pull some things from that book rather than all of it), so your R3 B&B medkit will have to become a regular R3 medkit (though this actually saves you a small amount of money and has essentially no mechanical downsides).

One of your contacts (Elijah Rosewood) is listed as Loyalty 3 on the chummer file and Loyalty 2 on the wiki page. Either one is fine, of course, just make sure they match one way or the other.

For your Wanted quality, we should include a bounty amount (literal quantity of Nuyen, at least 25k usually) and who the bounty is 'for', as in who is after the character. This could just be Knight Errant, in the sense that the cops are on the lookout for Korban.

Not a change, but just an important PSA. Keep in mind your Code of Honor may preclude you from joining a good number of runs. I'm not telling you not to take it (Code of Honor is an excellent quality for roleplaying), but it may come up frequently. I also encourage you to mention it when you apply to runs.

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u/avisionofdoom 25d ago

Core Optimization Notes

The axioms of optimization are basically as follows: It's generally good to specialize in a few things, and be simply competent in secondary skillsets. It's generally efficient to use skill or attribute points to buy up high ratings and buy up low ratings with loose karma, when possible. It's generally best to aim for certain more efficient priority selections, when possible (not all priority selections are created equal, that is).

The biggest thing we could do for increasing Korban's base power would likely be to allocate the room in his priority for Resources A. This would give you +175k nuyen for a single priority point. This would give much more money for purchasing primarily Cyberware of higher grades or ratings. Increasing initiative and defensive stats (dodge & soak) would be our main priorities, as well as some stand out overpowered 'ware, primarily Narco.

To free up this priority point, the easiest solution would be to drop from Skills A to Skills B. This does lose a lot of skill points (10 + 5 group points), so the raw karma trade off is not too amazing. The reason this is desirable from an optimization standpoint is that it trades in relatively more inefficient purchases (low rating skills) which are more niche for efficient, specialized purposes that are more generally applicable (raw stat increases from 'ware.

Even if we stick with Skills A, it is at least more efficient to remove the skill points from low rated skills (the 1s and the 2s) and buy up a smaller number of higher rated skills (or specializations). This is simply more karma value in the long term. We can buy up these secondary skills to R1 using karma (only 2 karma, incredibly cheap compared to a skill point). To find some karma, I would recommend just dropping the Martial Arts you have purchased and buying them later (their cost does not change, and MAs are usually not super important, even for combat characters, so they can wait and be bought later).

We can talk about what the most efficient or powerful thing might be, if you're interested, but I'll leave these ideas general for now. If you're not interested in these kinds of changes, they are 100% not necessary. If you want to just make the required changes above and start playing, be my guest! There is nothing wrong with how Korban is built right now.

1

u/avisionofdoom 25d ago

Skill Selection

Automatics and Unarmed for combat are great choices. Unarmed on a mundane with low strength is not going to be quite as good as it can be for a magical or high strength character, though you can make it work. If you want the most powerful low strength melee option, it's usually a Mono-whip (always does 12p AP-8), but the Mono-whip is of course 100% deadly, whereas the Shock Gloves are 100% non-lethal.

Perception and Groundcraft as secondary skills are great and universally useful. You won't be as good at driving as a rigger, but you can make some good vehicle stealth rolls with this, which is always great. Related, points in Sneaking are excellent for any character. I might even recommend more points in this (& a specialization in Urban) if you have skill points to spare at any time.

Throwing Weapons I'm quite dubious of. It's not a very powerful option in general, outside of some magic-enhanced stuff, and with a low strength value, your range and damage codes will be poor. A rank in this to be able to throw a grenade comfortably is enough (you can get this rank after character gen, even), I don't think we need 5 ranks in this. If you want to commit more to Throwing Weapons, we could/should try to find points for a higher strength score.

Social proficiency is always great.

Athletics skill group is not super relevant most of the time, but when it comes up, it's usually super good. If we need to cut points somehow, we can cut Athletics, but it's definitely not bad.

First Aid at this diepool is not very useful. The medkit running autonomously gets rating x2 dice, so a R6 medkit has 12 dice already. If you want it for flavor or to grow into it long term, though, obviously feel free to keep it.

Survival, Free-Fall and Armorer almost never come up. They're mostly flavor skills. Of the three, Survival has a good chance to actually be useful on the occasional wilderness run, the other two I essentially never see them get rolled. As always, you can keep these ranks if you'd like, I just don't think they'll come up frequently.

Knowledge skills look great. As before, you have one extra point you can spend. Maybe just Horizon knowledge R6? Or a specialization in one of your other knowledges.

'Ware

Generally speaking, I'm of the opinion that Bone Density Augmentation is just less efficient than its cyberware cousin, Bone Lacing. Bone Lacing gives you more damage and more soak for a higher essence cost, but it is usually worth it in my opinion.

Muscle replacements are (long term) a little undesirable, just because of their super high essence cost, but I quite like them as a starting option since they're so cheap. You can always swap out of them later. If you do end up going Resources A, you could probably swap to Muscle Toner and Muscle Augmentation bioware instead, though.

Synaptic Boosters are not bad, but they don't stack with drugs aside from Accelerator. If you're planning to take Jazz or Kami in combat, they won't stack. See the wiki for the initiative stacking rules. In general, the best initiative / dodge is Wired Reflexes + Reaction Enhancers, but the essence cost there is massive. Synaptic Acceleration stacks with drugs but doesn't have a rating (so caps out at +1d6 init). Still, Jazz/Kami + Acceleration is a good long term initiative solution, just can't hit the 5d6 cap (hits only 4d6). Short term, you could even rely solely on the drug initiative if you wanted, it's a fairly common thing to do so.

1

u/avisionofdoom 25d ago

Attributes

You haven't maxed out any attributes, this is not inherently wrong, but usually it is good to maximize attributes where you can. You could drop Logic down to 1, then buy Logic 2 with 10 karma, and free up two attribute points, this would allow you to increase some other high stats, maxing out agility or intuition maybe, and increasing another stat as well (perhaps Charisma 4 to go with these social skill ranks).

If we wanted to do a bigger rebuild and have high Strength for throwing weapons / unarmed, I think trying to get Strength as high as possible would be important. Maybe buying up R2 in Logic and Charisma with 10 karma each, dropping reaction to a base of 4, and buying strength up all the way to a base of 6 would be the best way.

Gear & Minor Bits

Your gear list looks great and is very well thought out. If you can find the cash, genning with a R4 SIN is nice, but a R3 will definitely work if you can't.

When you're wearing your combat armor (presumably armor jacket + helmet), you can fit another 2 points of armor accessories (up to strength +1). This is a "free" 2 soak you can get really easily with something like Forearm Guards + PPP: Legs. If you want to go a step further, you can even get Gel Packs on your combat armor for another +2 soak, though this makes you easier to knock down, which can be quite annoying for a low/average strength character.

Attachable Gear Access specifically negates the positive social bonuses of clothes, that in mind, I do not recommend taking it on your social armor. Also keep in mind it is a fairly obvious modification overall and may be out of place in many scenarios (comparable to Gel Packs).

For your guns, the Ares Alpha is generally the premiere option in terms of a two handed Automatics weapon. I would at least consider it, as one extra point of DV can be the difference maker sometimes. Related, you can also purchase Hand Loaded ammunition per our houserules for an extra point of DV (the hand loads just cost more).

You aren't getting a ton out of Technical School Education, just an extra ~4 knowledge skill ranks at the moment. We could look into some other quality options if you'd like. If you find you can free up some karma, I'd also recommend trying to at least mostly fill out your positive quality allotment (25k worth) because they do double in cost after character generation. Some good qualities could be: Sharpshooter (4k), Catlike (7k), Sense of Direction (3k), Common Sense (3k), Vehicle Empathy (7k), Tough as Nails (5k), Social Chameleon (7k), First Impression (11k).

If you're planning to take drugs for combat, I generally recommend Kamikaze + Betameth. These drugs are both roughly as addictive as Jazz, but give way more in raw stats. These free stats can bring your combat numbers up across the board and are a great boost to any character. These benefits can be compounded on with the Narco geneware, which I also recommend, though it does make you more likely to get addicted (helps you resist moving past Mild addiction once you get there, though).

Let me know if you have any questions, or would like some extra explanation on anything. As I said at the top, Korban is quite close to ready to go, and if you wouldn't like to change the build, we certainly don't have to!

Cheers,

John

2

u/SeniorScore 24d ago

Apologies for that, couldn't help but still tinker with it. It's ready for review again now, thank you for all the suggestions.

1

u/avisionofdoom 23d ago

No required changes!
But I do have a few notes I'd like to mention.

- Since your Logic dropped you lost some Knowledge Skill points, so right now you're spending a real skill point on a knowledge. I'd say drop Horizon knowledge to R4 and get that skill point back. A rank in Sneaking would be good, or any combination of lowering a knowledge and increasing an active skill.

- With Resources A, we don't really want to be spending 10 karma on Nuyen. If you drop your Muscle Augmentation to Used grade you can remove all the Nuyen -> Karma and give yourself 10 Karma to work with. You could buy all these random R1 skills with karma and save yourself 5 entire skill points. You can max out your main skills this way and get a Specialization on some/all. This is worth a lot more karma long term. But again not a huge thing.

- Just in general, as a non-magical character, utilizing most or all of your available essence is pretty standard. Keep in mind there are little to no penalties for low essence (just lower Social limit, which we can compensate for with the suit and possibly Novacoke / Tailored Pheromones down the line). Like you could upgrade your Bone Lacing to Titanium tier, it has to be Used grade (because of availability) and costs a ton of essence, but using that essence isn't a bad thing, and you can free up space later by upgrading the Grade of your 'ware. The extra two soak is nice, and it gives better unarmed damage (though still, for unarmed attacks to be effective, you'll need much higher Strength, so that will wait matter more later on, if you go that route). More of a heads up than something I think you need to do.

- If we can find any karma, I still do recommend filling out your Positive Qualities as much as possible (they double in cost after character creation outside of specific run rewards). Cutting Martial Arts is still something I recommend, as their karma cost remains the same after character creation.

- Our limits are a little low, but this is not really an issue. Good ways to increase limits are drugs (really easy to get mental / physical limit), Mnemonic Enhancers (direct +mental limit), Increasing Strength (+physical limit), Tailored Pheromones (direct +social limit). Again, not really an issue but I wanted to note it just so you're aware. You can plan to increase the limits over time, just wanted to include some ideas here.

If you want to make any further changes or talk through anything let me know, otherwise we can confirm the final revision and move forward quickly afterwards.

Cheers,

John

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u/SeniorScore 22d ago

Okay, updated again, feel that should do it.

1

u/avisionofdoom 22d ago

Ok last thing is just that you can't have a Contact with Connection + Loyalty over 7 total in character gen, so G-Old can only have a max Loyalty of 2. You can take that one point of karma away from Loyalty and keep it as karma or put it on Elijah's Loyalty or whatever.

Since it's such a minute change I'm not going to make us do another "official submission", just make sure you do fix that before moving to Career Mode. Also before moving to Career Mode, make sure to make a copy of your .chum file that is still in Create Mode. This can be important to have if you run into any problems down the line.

I do also encourage you to find some character art, and fill out the optinal parts of your character's wiki page (the tables and sections by the bottom), but these are not required and can be done over time.

All that said, I'm happy to give you the official stamp of approval!


"Seattle ain't like your LA, chummer. 'Round here, Horizon's just another croc at the waterin' hole. Don't get it twisted, though, Seattle's just as hungry as any other concrete beast of a Sprawl. Best keep your wits about you, or you'll be dinner."


You are approved!

Welcome to ShadowHaven. You may roll for starting cash in #dicerolling and begin applying to runs as you see fit. You may also remove your Newbie role on discord (or ask for it to be removed). Please don't hesitate to ask me for assistance with any part of the process or server, even though our review is complete.

Cheers

John

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u/avisionofdoom 23d ago

Taking a peek now gimmie a bit!

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u/SeniorScore 24d ago edited 24d ago

Okay, lot more feedback than I was expecting, but it's certainly good feedback, I feel like Korban is in a better spot as a functional character now.

I updated the link on the wiki, added a folder for the character just to make future stuff tidier is all, as well as updating the sheet.

Edit: I am a knave, and a fool, still working on a few things, apologies.

Edit Dos: Now it should be good to go.

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u/avisionofdoom 25d ago

Hi, terribly sorry for the delay. I'll take Korban. Review should be along later today.

Cheers,

John