Jesse Heinig's page

Yep, this character is strongly tied to a theme, and really drives in that direction, which informs all of the character design decisions. (That is also why the character has Knowledge skill ranks in pornography: Not because I intend to play an over-the-top nympho, but because dolphins are notoriously horny creatures, so this simply informs background that isn't really relevant to the Shadowrunning life.)

I realize that aquatic missions are extremely rare (in 20 years of running SR3, I have run one underwater combat). This character certainly needs a few runs' worth of karma to round out her skill set for some useful additional areas.

Fortunately, the spare cash on the sheet is already divided by 10 (per the SR3 resource rules: unspent money is divided by 10 and then turned into available cash), so I can go back and add on some additional outfits to provide different kinds of armor for different situations. I've added a secure long coat for usual street runs, and a Vashon Island Sleeping Tiger outfit for high society clothing.

You are correct that the oxygen tank is for the water carbine, in case it needs to be used underwater. Note that the water carbine is a weapon alternative; the Clout spell is her hard-hitter, but due to Drain sometimes it's more effective to use a firearm.

The artificial gill is for shallow swimming, like reef diving and surfing. For greater depths, she uses the Oxygenate spell. The target penalty on all actions for having a Sustained spell is fierce, though, so she has the artificial gill so that she doesn't have to use that spell unless there is no other option. This way she can swim in shallows without needing to worry about sustaining the spell.

Ok, first recruit that I reached out to has chosen to demur, as the complexity of the SR3 system is more than they want to navigate at this time. I'll keep looking for possible recruits!

The dolphin shaman should have points breakdowns in each section, to make it easy to follow the math. I used a spreadsheet for tracking starting cash, but still need to roll the 3d6 pocket money.

Samurai prospect is trying to figure out if the amount of crunch in the system is more than they want to deal with in a game right now and should get back soon. If they decide to no-go, I'll go back to polling some other players. :)

The other player says they're working on something, but I haven't heard back in a couple days. They've been reliable in other games, though.

Was there any feedback re: the dolphin shaman, or "looks fine let's go"?

Ok, here is the updated, point-buy version of the dolphin shaman.

In communication with the other prospective player about redoing the samurai.

I had forgotten how much I hate point buy. 120 points, right? (Note that that would make my character worse than just using the priority system.)

EDOT: Just spotted the 130 point note. Updating.

Just doing a weekly check-in, because things are eerily silent here.

I'm rebuilding my dolphin shaman using point-buy and helping the other player to make a samurai, because it's been a hot minute (or decade, or two) since they've played SR3.

Argh. Now I have to check to see if the character I built using the priority system is still legal in point-buy.

I may have found a player for a street samurai, if the team is interested in continuing. (Been quiet here.)

I am in PF games with a few board regulars so I'll ask a few folks if they are also SR3 players.

The team seemed most enthusiastic about the dolphin shaman, so that's what I went with.

Do y'all have a replacement player in mind, or do you want me to see if I can recruit someone?

One of the greatest campaigns of all time!

Here we gooooo

Note that shamans and hermetic mages, while they use the same rules for spellcasting, walk thematically different paths and deal with different kinds of spirits. This means there should be plenty of room for 0nyx if she's able to return.

Coolio. So, if anyone on the existing team has any thoughts about which character they prefer—the reserved, no-nonsense street samurai, or the free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky dolphin shaman—please speak, or type, up!

Hope you feel better soon Tilnar!

Total radio silence? Over a weekend? In this economy?

Ok, I have a small folder of candidates.

• Veronica T. Hartley, alias NOP, whom you've previously seen. Human decker, mechanical hobbyist. Friendly, upbeat, intelligent. Not a great fighter, mostly brings computer skills to the team.
• Genevieve Arc, alias Winter. Human budget samurai. Terse, perceptive, tactical. Former corporate bodyguard. Can take a few hits and has facility with submachine guns.
• Marina Garcia, alias Cyan. Human dolphin shaman. Some spellcasting, a small amount of face ability (high Etiquette), has a subspecialty in underwater work. (In over 30 years of playing SR I have seen underwater combat come up exactly once, so this is probably not a big thing.) Ebullient, mellow, naughty.

I don't have a strong preference one way or the other. I am not sure whether Tilnar means to run a game with the "you better bring some guns and a hacker" style or a "I read your character sheets and assumed that the fixer picked you for jobs that match your skills" style, so I can't recommend one over another. Cyan (the shaman) probably has the most skill points in things that are unlikely to come up (diving, underwater combat). Winter (the budget samurai) is the best for having someone who can suck up some damage, while of course NOP is in case the party wants their own decker.

Open to questions/opinions.

Yep, one of the other SR campaigns that I play off and on has a character who is a non-cybered private eye, basically a noir detective. Whoever's running has to do some hoop-jumping to make adventures that fit the character thematically and don't involve using typical enemies that would just explode his head.

A lot of it comes down to how Tilnar runs the game. If you are expected to geek some 'weeners to get physical access to a trunk line that lets you hack a server, you probably need a samurai and a decker to do that. The more your characters move away from the specific roles that most shadowruns expect, the more you have to make custom 'runs that the characters can accomplish. (Or, if you're the kind of GM who does the 'here is the world, it's up to you to figure it out', you just throw the players in the deep end and let them flail around because they don't have the tools to solve the problems).

Physical adepts are great but have some challenges; they really do wind up playing like a monk in D&D/PF:

* Unless you are a gun adept, you must close with the enemy, which presumably means running cover to cover until you get around behind their cover to get into melee with a guy who has a gun
* You have Body + armor to absorb damage, but likely don't have cyberwear improving your soak
* You can take powers that let you reduce pain/stun dice penalties, but they're expensive (Danny doesn't have Pain Resistance, so taking damage or stun hurts his effectiveness)
* You can take reflex-boosting powers that improve your Reaction & initiative dice, but they're expensive (I see Danny has Sixth Sense, which only affects surprise, but doesn't have Improved Reflexes, which gives you bonus Reaction + initiative dice)

This means your combat cycle, unless you have range (like distance strike, bow adept or gun adept), is run cover to cover, skirmish an enemy with melee, take that enemy down with killing hands, repeat. If you get shot, you are in real trouble.

Samurai usually come in two flavors.
1. Heavy armored troll samurai who tanks everything with Body + armor + Dermal Plating.
2. Super-fast striker who shoots enemies before they can act, usually with a high-damage burst weapon like an assault rifle.

I'm working on a samurai just to see what I can come up with, but I can make... well, anything, really. :)

Unless Tilnar is running an unconventional game, a hardcore samurai may be important. Being able to suck up bullets and survive combat is a necessity if you are going to ever get into a fight. Just fighting a small group of gangers when your whole team is softies is gonna get you all killed.

Shadowrun comes out of an era of game design when it really wants you to cover various roles for your team, and there's a bit of an expectation that most teams will have a samurai, a spellcaster, and a decker, and everything else is negotiable unless you have a specific mission profile need (e.g. you are doing drone intercept so you must have a rigger).

So y'all want a decker, samurai, or caster?

(I can always make a samurai instead, if y'all want a bullet-stopper. Or a mage, if Treppa is in the wind.)

I have a fully armed and operational 3rd edition decker, but that's contingent on there still being a game.

Sorry to see your table fold, but we may have a spot available in an ongoing Kingmaker game over here. Assuming you haven't tired of KM in PF1e, drop on by and say hello. We haven't made a public announcement, and things are a little slow at the moment, but one player just had to leave due to real life complications so we may need to fill a space. (Leaving player was a magus.)

Shame if this run fizzled out, chummers.

OMG they skipped the coffin?!?

Never have I seen so much drama over getting a car. :D

Isn't an ersatz Lyft a thing in Shadowrun? Most cars are at least semi-autonomous, after all!

Ah, I didn't follow up as it looked like the concept that I floated wasn't what the group needed! I can always rework something different.

Oh, it's already a thing!

Zhang Jim wrote:

Just squeezing in under the wire.

Interesting! That Thaumaturgy 2 Path of Blood or something else?

Just Path of Blood, nothing unusual.

I love the idea of Neerly Reel Ryce (TM), but apparently it leaves Jay cold.

Makes sense that in the dystopian future, they found a way to make money from the microplastics in rice!

Sorry for the delay. Been SUPER busy with work.

I forget, was I in that one? I know there was a Dark Ages game that I was in but it died.

Noodling with the concept of Zhang Jim, a mixed-heritage local who was forcibly inducted by the Tremere to get a "resident agent." Minimal proficiency in a range of Tremere disciplines, mostly upset about having his life abruptly ended and terrified of the possibility of running afoul of the shen.

Jesse Heinig wrote:

Fiiine I'll try to find my copy of the WoT book and see what I can come up with

These are the books that Rizz posted that he is using. I messaged him in discord, he said he didn't mind if I posted the information here.

Yeah, I have the core book.

Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (6, 2, 6, 2) = 16 -> 14
Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 4, 2, 6) = 13 -> 12
Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 5, 6) = 15 -> 14
Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (4, 3, 4, 5) = 16 -> 13
Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 4, 4) = 18 -> 14
Stat: 4d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 4, 5) = 17 -> 14

That is... hmm.

Cairhienen wanderer (a traveling trader). I'll figure something out.

Fiiine I'll try to find my copy of the WoT book and see what I can come up with

Working now.

Heya, as a sort of "but consider..." moment, since the Black Sovereign is in charge but is being puppeted by the Technic League, getting him back on his right mind and wanting to work with you might be advantageous. :)

Sorry, my computer broke and I'm only partially back online.

I'd lean toward Tremere or Tzimisce, I think.

Yeah it seems that the internet has really let people live their best anonymous hate mob!

ANYway...

Jesse Heinig wrote:

Interesting. It's certainly a way for people to flex their individuality and show how they approach each clan as a unique person rather than a monoculture.

(Incidentally, I wrote the 2e Tremere clanbook)

And if I remember correctly, caught way more grief for M:tA Revised than was even remotely deserved. For what it's worth, I liked the Revised edition.

Well, that's the internet for you, but the death threats were a bit much.

Interesting. It's certainly a way for people to flex their individuality and show how they approach each clan as a unique person rather than a monoculture.

(Incidentally, I wrote the 2e Tremere clanbook)

Oh for sure, just sayin' "We have these problems and we can't seem to figure out the approach" seems to be the order of the day. :)

These all become "lesson learned" moments for the characters anyway! "Lesson learned: have some means of stashing loot figured out in advance."

Last time I ran Shadowrun, the team was really bad about vehicles, nobody wanted to spend money on a vehicle so everyone was using motorcycles and in one case even a Dodge scoot. This meant they had no way to carry extra people or haul off hardware, a lesson that they learned the hard way!

Tilnar's running a tense game. I am very aware that ambush tactics have worked out very well for us and someday when we're on the receiving end it's gonna hurt.

Meanwhile as a newbie, I am clueless. We can't just pop all the loot into a handy haversack(TM) and sort it out later. Transportation is a bigger issue than I'd have imagined. Most of this stuff seems heavier than we'd like to carry. And where do we store it?

What's everyone think? Call Danny's friend a hook a ride?

I'm in one of Tilnar's PF games, and one of the recurring challenges for us is that the problems we're facing are complex, with no evident solutions, and as PCs we spend a lot of time just talking over our options and trying to figure out what we agree as our way forward. There are some similarities with the SR game here: There are plenty of locals who don't like our PCs, we seem to lack the ability to deal with our current problems, and there are large gaps in our information that we don't have any way to fill. It's kind of a toss-up between "just try something really risky and see what happens" vs. "keep chipping around the edges of the problem and see if something gives way." (This does mean we sometimes spend a few days just twiddling our thumbs, unable to make up our minds about what to do next.) So you're not alone! Complex problems without obvious solutions seem to be the challenge of the day!

If it helps, one thing I often do in modern and postmodern game settings is think "What would I do, myself, if I found myself in this problem?" Like in Vampire, lots of people want to go to their super powers first, but sometimes you can just solve a problem in a mundane way without having to get flashy. Similarly in Shadowrun, at the end of the day a lot of the world is still functioning (albeit as a dystopia) in ways that we can recognize. If you have access to salvaged tech, sell it to scrappers. If you have to way to move it, call up a contact (a fixer or the like) and ask if they have a way to do so, and they can take a cut of the profits. Or, if it's just slowing down your movement toward your eventual goal, ignore it. Nuyen is nice but you have a job to do!

I've been reading along and this is a nail-biter :)

That's a pretty nasty recuperation. Hope it's still going well.

Just hangin' out, waiting for entry.

I also built on the assumption of standard starting wealth for 6th level, which is 16,000 gp value.

Ok, here we go. Hope it's not too out there (for a human cleric).

This character is a pure healing/support build—no combat abilities whatsoever. It may be useful to think of her like a wizard (very fragile) who casts healing spells, buffs, and defenses.

Should I make a 6th-level healer, or wait for the PM?

Wow, I don't even remember that. Must be how scattered my brain was with everything going wrong in life.

My limited understanding of mythic tier gaming is that everything is very bursty, that you either kill the enemy in your opening volley or you die. In-combat healing seems less critical under those conditions, compared to putting down protection spells and being able to raise the dead?