5E Shadowrunners out there? Need help to build a Assasiny Sniper with Rigger splash -

[NeverSleep]

Ok,

I'm very new to Shadowrun, in fact this is my first character concept that I've ever played.

I'm going into it with far more knowledge in 3.5 so any comparisons to that system will make sense.

Here's the concept:

I've got an ok to buy 1 or 2 iron man type drones(special price, 100,000-175,000 nuyen apiece depending on features), so I want to splash into some rigger type stuff to take advantage of that.

The rest(and main) part of the character will be a longarm(sniper rifles) specialist who knows how to get in and out of a building so well its scary. Light face/acting abilities to help make this work.

I'm thinking customized software with building layouts(contacts - city planner/architects), drone pre-research(the regular little fliers).

Check out this scene:



She knew right where the weapon would be, because she had placed it there herself only a day earlier. She had also placed the C4 in the boiler room that day, just in case she needed a disctraction.

She quickly set-up her tripod and sniper rifle on the fire escape balcany as she had planned. Once that was done she sent her bot(Tin Lizzy) closer to the balcony in case the target made a getaway.

She set up the shot and squeezed the trigger. Once she did, she knew the shot was a hit, but not a clean one. So she jumped into Lizzy and burst through the window spraying lead amongst the surprised execs, but with special attention to the target.

Moments later guards burst through the doors with just enough time to fire a few wayward shots at the drone, who was now flying away behind another building.

She smiled to herself on the way out the door in her housekeeper's wear muttering to the doorman that "Maybe they should hang out sometime".

She kept her finger on the remote detonator the whole conversation.

Though she didn't use it that day, she did the following evening after retrieving her weapon with the help of Lizzy.

Why?

Because "Those megacorp bastards can suck my ..."

I'm thinking resources A, sklls B, attributes C. I could be convinced otherwise.

Do you guys have any advice on essential gear, or tips and tricks to playing/building this type of character?

Thanks!

[Tome]

I'll give some more detailed advice when I get a moment, but I'll say this now - either drop the super expensive drones, or get used to thinking of your character as a rigger first and a sniper second.

I'd advise against the expensive drones anyway. The SR5 rules do not favour riggers at the moment, particularly those with expensive drones (and the drones we have rules for top out at 25,000 nuyen, so yours are absolutely off the charts in terms of cost). Even if your GM is houseruling repair costs down to something a little less crazy than the RAW you're still going to bankrupting yourself every time one of those things gets dinged.

Yes, it costs money to fix stuff in Shadowrun. Expensive toys that get shot result in expensive repair bills. It's very easy to end up loosing money on a run because some put a hole in your drone and it costs more to replace or repair it than the run paid. Running big expensive drones means that you have some serious financial backing or that you've got the reputation to demand the big paychecks - you don't have either of those at chargen by the way.

EDIT So, how to make what you want into something that's practical.

First, switch out the drones for something a little more sane. Crawlers and Roto-drones are reasonably priced and can mount a weapon, so grab one of those. They use different skills, so don't grab both. I'd advise the Roto-drone, since the aircraft skills will let you grab some nice surveillance drones.

Now decide how much rigging you want to do. If you want to be doing most of the stuff yourself with your drones supporting you then all you need are the drones, the autosofts, a decent commlink and a datajack. This is affordable on Resources C if you're smart, leaving A and B for skills and attributes. You can just leave them on autopilot whilst you do your thing and it'll be perfectly fine.

It you want to actually be jumping in that means you're going to have to invest substantially more, making you worse at the other things you do. You'll need to put a higher priority into resources to get you that Rigger Command Console and Control Rig, you'll need to put points into Reaction and take the Pilot and Gunnery skills. You also probably want some hacking skills to keep people from subverting your drones and turning them against you. Once you've invested in all that though, the question becomes 'why bother sniping with you meat body?' since your sniping skills with your drones are probably just as good. You're basically a rigger at this point.

Assuming you don't want to go full Rigger though, here's some suggestions.
I'd go with Skills A, Attributes B, Resources C, Metatype D and Magic E. You've got a lot of things you need to be good at so you're going to need plenty of skill points. You can choose either human or elf for your metatype, humans have lots of lovely Edge while Elves add to the two attributes you'll be using most.

You need Longarms, Sneaking and Perception at a bare minimum for sniping. Those three should be maxed, probably with a speciality on top. Picking up a few points in pistols for a more concealable weapon is also advised.

Your sneaking stuff should be supplemented by Palming (to hide your weapons and other gear), Impersonation, Disguise, Gymnastics, Hardware, Locksmith, Con and Etiquette. And since you've got the basics of being a Face already, throw in Negotiation too - it is super useful to have.

The drones probably want some Computer, Software, Electronic Warfare and whichever Engineering skill applies. Pilot and Gunnery too if you plan on jumping in, but that adds even more skills and you've got plenty to invest in already.

You'll note that you're got the entire Stealth skill group in there and it's all fairly key to your character, so use your skill group points on that. If you've got Skills A and thus points left over after maxing that you can also grab the Acting, Athletics or Electronics skill groups.

When you're assigning skill points remember that it costs a lot more to raise a higher rated skill with karma (Shadowrun's xp system) than a low rated one, so prioritise using your skill points to get a smaller number of skills as high as possible and buy the lower rated ones up with karma.

An example skill spread for you might look something like this:

Stealth Skill Group 6
Electronics Skill Group 4
Aeronautical Engineering 3
Con 6
Electronic Warfare 3
Etiquette 6
Gymnastics 1 (Purchased with karma)
Impersonation 6
Negotiation 4
Locksmith 6
Longarms 6 (Sniper Rifles +2)
Perception 6 (Visual +2)
Pilot Groundcraft 1 (Purchased with karma)
Pistols 1 (Purchased with karma)
Running 1 (Purchased with karma)


Noticed how that's a lot of skills you need? Yeah, even without adding in the rigging you've got a good long list of skills you need to make the Sniper/Face/B&E angle work.

Like skills, you want these to be either really high or really low due to way they're costed. Any Attribute you're planning on putting at 2 should be put at 1 instead and then brought up with karma - going from 1 to 2 is so cheap karma wise that there's little reason not to do so. You've only really got one dumpstat and two attributes that need to be high, so Attributes B is sort of your minimum.

Body should be either 3 or 5, as those are the break points for getting extra damage boxes.

Agility is the attribute that fuels half of everything you ever do. This should be the one you put at 6 (or 7 if you want to be an elf). If you've got the nuyen, buy some Muscle Toner to increase this even further.

Reaction affects initiative (super important), physical limit and Rigger stuff. However, if you're not jumping in then you shouldn't need it too badly.

Strength does nothing for you except climbing and running. And Climbing has plenty of cheap boost from gear while running is superseded by you base speed being determined by Agility. The only reason not to put this at 1 and leave it there is that it heavily affects your physical limit. Pay attention to your Body and Reaction and make sure you've got just enough Strength to give you a decent Limit, otherwise it's your dump stat.

Charisma is probably what you're using for any roll that isn't based on Agility. It should be your second priority.

Logic is mostly for your computer and repair skills. Which are sort of a secondary facet of a secondary facet of your character. Have some points, but don't go too crazy.

Intuition affects Perception, your knowledge skills and Disguise. It also feeds into initiative just like Reaction does.

Willpower is always good to have. It's most a defensive attribute for resisting matrix and magical attacks. Like Body, have it at 3 or 5 for the extra damage boxes.

An example spread on Attributes B would be something like:
Body 3
Agility 6
Reaction 3
Strength 2 (brought up to 2 with karma)
Charisma 5
Logic 3
Intuition 4
Willpower 3

What are you spending your nuyen on? You can probably manage something workable on resources C, though you may have to buy soem additional nuyen with your karma.

Well, every character needs a lifestyle, a fake SIN and a Commlink. A Low lifstyle can save karma, and there's little reason to buy more than a month or two of it at the start. Your Fake SIN should be as high as possible (Rating 4 for a starting character) and come with appropriate licences. A second fake SIN, likely at a much lower rating with your limited resources, is very helpful to have. You're using your Commlink to control your drones, so go for a Rating 6 Transys Avalon.

You've got whichever drone you've chosen to go with plus the autosofts for it, the weapon mount and whatever gun you're giving it.

Then you need armour and weapons for yourself. A sniper rifle, maybe a shotgun or pistol for backup. Make sure to get ammo, holsters, silencers and smartgun systems. You'll want an armoured jacket and a helmet for combat runs and something more subtle for when you're talking your way in. If you've got room, a chameleon suit would be great for sneaking around in.

Augmentations wise you want Wired Reflexes, Reaction Enhancers, Muscle Toner, Reflex Recorder, a Datajack and Cybereyes with a Smartlink. This is probably where a lot of your nuyen is going.When considering how much of the initiative boosting gear you're going to get, bear in mind the break points - don't bother getting more gear is it doesn't put either your minimum or average initiative rolls over 11 or 21. There's a minor break point at 16 for when you get hit with an initiative penalty but that's less vital.

You probably want a car or bike to get around with, kits for whatever skills require them and a lot of the more cost effective B&E gear. See what you have leftover after your augmentations. Gecko Tape Gloves, a Rating 6 Respirator and Goggles/Glasses/Contacts with some alternate vision modes are super cheap for what they do.

When picking your qualities Blandness, Catlike, First Impression and Indomitable (Physical) are good. Remember to grab some negative qualities, that karma is worth it. Mild Allergies and Weak Immune System are both fairly unobtrusive and very common in setting, so look at those if you can't come up with anything else.

[CombatOwl]

Ok,

I'm very new to Shadowrun, in fact this is my first character concept that I've ever played.

I'm going into it with far more knowledge in 3.5 so any comparisons to that system will make sense.

Here's the concept:

I've got an ok to buy 1 or 2 iron man type drones(special price, 100,000-175,000 nuyen apiece depending on features), so I want to splash into some rigger type stuff to take advantage of that.

The rest(and main) part of the character will be a longarm(sniper rifles) specialist who knows how to get in and out of a building so well its scary. Light face/acting abilities to help make this work.

I'm thinking customized software with building layouts(contacts - city planner/architects), drone pre-research(the regular little fliers).

Check out this scene:



I'm thinking resources A, sklls B, attributes C. I could be convinced otherwise.

Do you guys have any advice on essential gear, or tips and tricks to playing/building this type of character?

Thanks!

Rigging does't work well in SR5. You spend a fortune repairing drones. About the only riggers that work okay are the ones who focus on using cheapo spy drones that are cheap enough to be almost disposable. And even that is a little iffy if the GM uses the pay tables in the books.

Your 200k+ nuyen would be far, far better spent becoming a competent decker or just adding more cyberware/bioware for gun combat. Especially with an A in skills. You could very easily "minor" in decking.

[NeverSleep]

@Tome

Wise advice, I appreciate it! I took a look through all of it, and I think I'm going to morph my idea a little bit based on some of your suggestions.

@CombatOwl

Thanks for the input, I'm not really in for minoring in decking(partially becuase it doesn't seem interesting to me atm), but I will likely take up your idea on augmenting the meatbody with the extra money.

I think what I'm going to do is set-up my contacts so that I can grow into this idea, but initially start up with something like this:

(in casual priority order)

Sniper skills/combat style
Ghost skills(sneaking, hiding, etc...)
Gear for self-augmentation
Face Skills
A few cheap flyer drones
Flight pilot skills

Eventually I'll play to buy, design, or steal the humanoid drones through the course of the game. Putting skills in the nesessary places as I go.

[NeverSleep]

Bump for new viewers, and becuase I haven't started the building process yet.

Does anybody have some smart tips about how to combine these two?

Thanks again everyone!