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View Full Version : Shadowrun 4e: Building a Rigger



DjErebus
2010-04-24, 09:54 PM
So some friends and I are running 4e Shadowrun for what is essentially our first game with the system. The problem is, the only person even slightly familar with the rules at this point has spent the last six days locked in her room alternately giggling madly and screaming inarticulately, which is essentially her normal character creation process. Anyway, she referred me to this site when I asked her questions, and I sort of have a big one here.

Our team needs a really good rigger, and none of us here really have any idea how to make one. We're hoping really desperately that you guys can get us at least halfway there.

So... We have 500 base BP, access to every sourcebook, and the limits on qualities are a little different; we can still only take 35 points in positive qualities, but we're allowed 4 negative qualities that can be whatever total value we feel like. Pretty much anything goes. We'd also prefer most of whatever we get to be legal, unlikely to be noticed, or irrelevant because we blew something important up with it anyway.

Yeah... If you guys could help us in any way, that'd really help us. Thanks. :smalleek:

Noedig
2010-04-24, 10:26 PM
I'm unfortunately not as familiar with SR 4e as I should be, but ive got nearly all of the 3e rigger stuff if that helps any.

DjErebus
2010-04-24, 10:33 PM
Unfortunately we've never used 3e, so I can't say one way or another whether it helps, I'm afraid.

Tehnar
2010-04-25, 07:05 AM
Do you still have the 50BP limit on equipment? Cause Rigger stuff gets crazy expensive fast.

For stats I would suggest you keep a high reaction and logic. Other stuff is nice too but not so critical.

For skills you will want the Electronics group, Hacking group (should have at least some, or even beef up this area if your group doesn't have a dedicated hacker), Gunnery, various Pilot skills and may wish to take skills that let you upgrade/repair drones/vehicles/guns. Also when jumped in a drone you use its attributes and your skills to do stuff (except you still use gunnery for shooting), so points in infiltration and perception won't go amiss.

The most complicated part of building any character is the gear, and for the rigger it is doubly so. Aside from the basic personal stuff and 'ware, you'll want to customize your drones and vehicles. Sensors, drone matrix attributes, various weapons, autosofts, pilot programs, various turrets all drive the price up. If 50 bp on gear is your limit, I would settle on a few customized drones and a single customized vehicle. Though at the end you will still want more nuyen.

Depending on your GM it might be worth taking the in debt disadvantage. One of the few ways to get extra starting cash, but be vary, clever GMs will be using it against you a lot.

DjErebus
2010-04-25, 12:13 PM
Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, we do still have the 50 BP limit there, as far as I know.
We've taken your advice and grabbed the in debt trait to the fullest extent possible. It's also helpful in that it grants us a bucketfull of points.

So now things boil down to actual equipment. We're open to recommendations.

Scarlet Tropix
2010-04-25, 07:16 PM
Hey guys, I'm done for the moment.
My advice; Make sure you look through arsenal carefully. Riggers NEED that book.

Ghost49X
2010-10-10, 02:41 AM
I would personally recomend the "Juryrigger" and maybe the "Restricted Gear" qualities from the runner's companion book

Juryrigger will allow you to coax a little more out of your machines or keep them working for just 1 more combat turn before they blow

And with restricted gear you can buy 1 peace of gear with avaibility of up to 20 which you can use as your trumph card

WinWin
2010-10-10, 03:57 AM
Runner Companion has some good options.

Try and get a safehouse with the Feng Shui quality. Pimp it out for drone storage and mechanics. That way you can do routine maintanence on your drones, rebuilds when they get totalled or become high profile.

You don't want to be travelling arounf with a few hundred k nuyen of tech and living on the street, do you?

Swordguy
2010-10-10, 04:42 AM
OK, first thing you need to do is decide which type of Rigger you'd like to be. There's two types - a Vehicle Rigger and a Drone Rigger. You can do both roles, but you need to decide which one will be dominant (ie, what most of your starting cash will go to).

Next, find out what sort of campaign the GM plans to run. Is it going to be very "punk"? Post-apocalyptic? Slick "Matrix-esque" stealth runs? A tabletop action movie a la the A-TEAM?

With 500 BP, you're going to be VERY good at what you do. Max out your starting money (and beg your GM to give you some more, if feasible), and grab the Restricted Gear advantage (at minimum). Add other advantages to taste. Your most important skills will be Electronic Warfare and Hardware (plus any appropriate Pilot X skills and Gunnery if you decide to be a Vehicle Rigger). Armorer is a good choice, and then most of the mechanical skills, for obvious reasons. Equipment-wise, get a commlink with the best Signal and Firewalls you can get, and max out your Scan, Command, Encrypt, and Sniffer programs. A bit of bioware or cyberware and a decent sidearm to make you at least a little credible as a combatant will help too, since you're not always going to be around your mechanical minions. I recommend a smartlinked automatic shotgun and a machine pistol, but it's your call.

For a Vehicle Rigger...you want to buy the best vehicle that is best suited to your campaign. If it's a rollicking shoot-em-up, I recommend the Ares Roadmaster (basically an APC). For a more stealthy campaign, I'd go with the Bison - effectively an RV that's not going to get second looks parked on the street. Both vehicles have PLENTY of room to modify stuff, and both will hold a moderately-large team of runners (being a V-Rigger who only runs a motorcycle is generally considered to be a "**** move"). If you took Restricted Gear, use it on getting an awesome ride. Trick the bejezus out your ride - extra armor, speed, handling, off-road capability, environmental sealing, retractable turrets...the list is endless and amusing. Be SURE that whatever you do, get a mimetic license plate and remove the GrideGuide system from your vehicle. Save enough cash, if possible, to get a couple of cheap drones (at least one recon drone and one combat drone) to give you some options.

For a Drone Rigger...buy a good group vehicle anyway. You're not really going to modify it except to make it minimally acceptable to the group...and put drone launching/recovery racks in it. Then, practically every cent you've got left that isn't in guns or lifestyle goes into buying drones and upgrading their Pilot and Firewall Ratings and their primary autosofts (Defense and Targeting for combat drones, for example) as high as they'll go and/or you can afford. I recommend at least 4 drones; 1 recon, 2 ground-based combat, and 1 miscellaneous drone of your choice. If you can manage to get 5 or 6 drones, get an extra recon drone first (1 micro-sized, ground-based recon platform, and one airborne recon platform will do for you in almost every situation), and then get an airborne combat drone as well.

Finally, as a drone rigger...DO NOT sit in your vehicle a half-mile from the rest of the team just "controlling drones". I warn you, this tends to annoy GMs, who will feel that you aren't risking anything but money (drones). They have three options: ignore you (unlikely), backtrace your signal and send a team to hunt you down (bad), or backtrace your signal and send a cruise missile to hunt you down (worse). Go with the group. Hug cover all the time if you must, but share the risk. You'll honestly probably like longer that way.

Oh, and Arsenal is mandatory for Riggers. They don't have compete, working rules in the main book. For one thing, fully half the idea of a Rigger is tinkering with your vehicle. The modification stuff is all in Arsenal; without that splatbook, you aren't a complete character archetype. Normally, you don't need to use any of the splats (you don't have to Initiate as a magic-user, for example, and there's plenty of cyberware to make a street sam in the core book)...but the Rigger is the exception that proves the rule.

EDIT: *sigh* And I totally took the time to type all that out without looking at the initial post date.

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