Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
Can anyone recommend a decent 5E character generator? I found this, but don't know how good it is as of yet:
http://heyomae.github.io/
http://heyomae.github.io/
Shadowrun: For Us It Was a Tuesday [OOC]
- Thread starter CanadienneBacon
- Start date
I've used Chummer5. However, I abandoned it for my own Excel sheet.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1j5wMS6KHqMZndteGkteG1yWWc&usp=sharing
Pull the zip down if you want to try it locally.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1j5wMS6KHqMZndteGkteG1yWWc&usp=sharing
Pull the zip down if you want to try it locally.
In Shadowrun they're called 'Archetypes,' but yes, there's several. Some are based on innate qualities, others are just specializations of skills and abilities, and are more fluid in nature.
For example:
Only someone with the Mage quality can be a mage. A mage can then focus on particular magical tradition, like the Hermetic (classical 'wizardry') and shamanistic. Further books add a lot. Tradition can vary what attributes a mage uses to resist magic drain and certain other things, but otherwise is mostly flavor.
Similarly, only someone with the Adept quality is a physical adept. An adept is a character who channels magical effects through their body...giving them supernatural qualities and/or skills, but without the flexibility (or cost) of casting spells.
There's also a Mystic Adept, who combines the ability to cast spells with the ability to have adept powers...but what they gain in flexibility they lose in a lack of focus.
Then there's Technomancers, who are characters who have a strange quasi-mystical connection to the Matrix (the future version of the Internet) that lets them interface with it via sheer mental ability. It's handy in terms of not needing fragile and expensive cyberdecks, but dangerous in that there's very little between their brains and the untempered fury of various Intrusion Countermeasures and other biofeedback Matrix 'damage.' They're sort of 'hackermages' who can use the quality of Resonance to 'cast' Matrix 'spells' instead of the decker's ability to hack, and compile strange spirit-softwares called Sprites who can assist them in various ways. Only characters who have the Technomancer quality can do this.
Further archetypes are more about combinations of skills and gear...of which gear includes various augmentation technologies.
Street Samurai are the popular vernacular for combat specialists of various types. Big ol' troll bruisers, lithe gun-fu wizards, demolitionists...if your job involves punching, shooting, or blowing things up in preference to other concerns, you're probably a Street Samurai. They often dont' JUST do violence though. Sneakery, face work, breaking and entering...depending on their skills, gear and augmentation, they can do a variety of other things too.
Deckers are the hardware-based hackers. What defines them is a single piece of equipment that will break their bank; the cyberdeck. It's a specialized computer with highly illegal counter-encryption capabilities required to wiggle past the many very robust security protocols that guard the Matrix from routine unauthorized activities. They can also be decent in a fight, or do other secondary roles much like a Samurai, but the requirements of hacking in terms of gear and skill points is much harder to have a really good secondary focus without compromising their core talents.
Riggers are very specialized deckers who, in lieu of a cyberdeck, possess an unusual cybernetic implant called a Control Rig. They often have a specialized computer of their own as well to help control their charges. Control rigs allow a rigger to connect wirelessly to a drone or properly equipped vehicle, and interface with it directly using a simsense control that makes the rigged vehicle feel like their own body. They're the getaway drivers, hotshot pilots, and the guy who sits back and rolls a little robot tank into the guarded compound to start wiping fools out when even trolls fear to tread there.
Note that these are distinct 'classes' but they're not as hardline as they are in a classed system. Anyone can buy a cyberdeck if they have the money, and it takes time and hardship, but you can get the skills needed to use it too, even if you don't start with them. Magic and Resonance are different, and you have to buy them in creation to have any potential for them...and being a mage and being an adept are mutually exclusive.
For example:
Only someone with the Mage quality can be a mage. A mage can then focus on particular magical tradition, like the Hermetic (classical 'wizardry') and shamanistic. Further books add a lot. Tradition can vary what attributes a mage uses to resist magic drain and certain other things, but otherwise is mostly flavor.
Similarly, only someone with the Adept quality is a physical adept. An adept is a character who channels magical effects through their body...giving them supernatural qualities and/or skills, but without the flexibility (or cost) of casting spells.
There's also a Mystic Adept, who combines the ability to cast spells with the ability to have adept powers...but what they gain in flexibility they lose in a lack of focus.
Then there's Technomancers, who are characters who have a strange quasi-mystical connection to the Matrix (the future version of the Internet) that lets them interface with it via sheer mental ability. It's handy in terms of not needing fragile and expensive cyberdecks, but dangerous in that there's very little between their brains and the untempered fury of various Intrusion Countermeasures and other biofeedback Matrix 'damage.' They're sort of 'hackermages' who can use the quality of Resonance to 'cast' Matrix 'spells' instead of the decker's ability to hack, and compile strange spirit-softwares called Sprites who can assist them in various ways. Only characters who have the Technomancer quality can do this.
Further archetypes are more about combinations of skills and gear...of which gear includes various augmentation technologies.
Street Samurai are the popular vernacular for combat specialists of various types. Big ol' troll bruisers, lithe gun-fu wizards, demolitionists...if your job involves punching, shooting, or blowing things up in preference to other concerns, you're probably a Street Samurai. They often dont' JUST do violence though. Sneakery, face work, breaking and entering...depending on their skills, gear and augmentation, they can do a variety of other things too.
Deckers are the hardware-based hackers. What defines them is a single piece of equipment that will break their bank; the cyberdeck. It's a specialized computer with highly illegal counter-encryption capabilities required to wiggle past the many very robust security protocols that guard the Matrix from routine unauthorized activities. They can also be decent in a fight, or do other secondary roles much like a Samurai, but the requirements of hacking in terms of gear and skill points is much harder to have a really good secondary focus without compromising their core talents.
Riggers are very specialized deckers who, in lieu of a cyberdeck, possess an unusual cybernetic implant called a Control Rig. They often have a specialized computer of their own as well to help control their charges. Control rigs allow a rigger to connect wirelessly to a drone or properly equipped vehicle, and interface with it directly using a simsense control that makes the rigged vehicle feel like their own body. They're the getaway drivers, hotshot pilots, and the guy who sits back and rolls a little robot tank into the guarded compound to start wiping fools out when even trolls fear to tread there.
Note that these are distinct 'classes' but they're not as hardline as they are in a classed system. Anyone can buy a cyberdeck if they have the money, and it takes time and hardship, but you can get the skills needed to use it too, even if you don't start with them. Magic and Resonance are different, and you have to buy them in creation to have any potential for them...and being a mage and being an adept are mutually exclusive.
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
This Wikipedia entry explains that Harajuku is a style of fashion originating from the Shinbuya district in Tokyo. It's more a style and less anything substantive, I suppose. "Harajuku" describes how I want my character to look. Think Patrick Demarchelier meets Sailor Moon meets Goth meets color:
I think I'd like to play an elf street samurai or a combat adept. My thought is that there's this wisp of a Japanese (or maybe an African American) girl, all decked out in haute coutour, but she is a total martial arts bad ass. She'll cut you. If an elf is a poor choice for a melee combatant, then I will settle for human.
I think I'd like to play an elf street samurai or a combat adept. My thought is that there's this wisp of a Japanese (or maybe an African American) girl, all decked out in haute coutour, but she is a total martial arts bad ass. She'll cut you. If an elf is a poor choice for a melee combatant, then I will settle for human.
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
Oh, yes, and she should be a SCBAMF at explosives. Teh boom.
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Hee...don't be afraid. 5th Edition actually sort of backtracked a bit from 4rth in some ways, reviving things like the Priority system and so on, so it might be more familiar to you than 4rth would have been.
Canadienne, that's totally doable!
You can go either cyber/bio, or physical adept. The tradeoff is that cyber/bio gives you potentially more power up front...but you're limited by your Essence stat. The more augmentation, the more it disrupts the integrity of your body (this is Shadowrun's system of making sure people don't just run around as human brains in robot bodies
). You start with 6 Essence, and each piece of augmentation deducts a bit from it. You can upgrade your 'ware, so it's more expensive but less disruptive to you, but there is a definitely ceiling to how much you can do that.
Adepts on the other hand are limited by their Magic attribute. They can buy it up as far as 6 (7 if they really invest heavily), and each point of Magic gives them a point they can spend on magic powers. The difference of course is that you CAN obtain more Magic during the game, though it's difficult and expensive in terms of experience points. Now magic powers are in general not as powerful as the augmentations of cybernetics and biogenetics, but they don't have that ceiling either.
In realistic terms, it's unlikely that a game will last so long that the difference will be all that noticeable. Magic has a few other benefits too...it's harder to detect in general, harder to tamper with, and can do a few things that artificial augmentation can't.
The benefits of augmentation are all reflected in the higher stat boosts, greater damage and defense boosts, and general kick-buttery.
Canadienne, that's totally doable!
You can go either cyber/bio, or physical adept. The tradeoff is that cyber/bio gives you potentially more power up front...but you're limited by your Essence stat. The more augmentation, the more it disrupts the integrity of your body (this is Shadowrun's system of making sure people don't just run around as human brains in robot bodies
). You start with 6 Essence, and each piece of augmentation deducts a bit from it. You can upgrade your 'ware, so it's more expensive but less disruptive to you, but there is a definitely ceiling to how much you can do that.Adepts on the other hand are limited by their Magic attribute. They can buy it up as far as 6 (7 if they really invest heavily), and each point of Magic gives them a point they can spend on magic powers. The difference of course is that you CAN obtain more Magic during the game, though it's difficult and expensive in terms of experience points. Now magic powers are in general not as powerful as the augmentations of cybernetics and biogenetics, but they don't have that ceiling either.
In realistic terms, it's unlikely that a game will last so long that the difference will be all that noticeable. Magic has a few other benefits too...it's harder to detect in general, harder to tamper with, and can do a few things that artificial augmentation can't.
The benefits of augmentation are all reflected in the higher stat boosts, greater damage and defense boosts, and general kick-buttery.
