When my home group opted to run another Shadowrun game, I was a little disappointed. I had never enjoyed the time-consuming character creation process in that game, and I had already exhausted most of the pre-gen characters in the books. Some regular SR players are probably cringing right now to learn that I had played any of the pre-gens, because they don't have reputations for being well built characters anyway. I went hunting online. Despite hours of searching, I failed to find ANY pre-generated characters for 5th edition on the web. Perhaps my Google-fu is weak, but there genuinely seems to be nothing out there.

I did find a few 4th edition characters that I was able to port over using a conversion document from the company website. Surprisingly to me, this method resulted in characters which *not* book legal. Well, it's good enough for concepts from which to built, I guess. I selected an elven technomancer pre-gen from a user called Umaro VI, and I started tinkering with it.

Two weeks later, I finally have a character which I think is a book legal starting character. One of the concepts that Umaro used was equipping this character with only unrestricted gear, thus not running the risk of being caught with cheap fake licenses. There seems to be no way in the 5th edition rules to buy legal licenses, so this is a legitimate concern. Some of the gear like the industrial sprayer to mount on his drone became restricted in 5th edition, so I switched that out with items that are currently unrestricted: a flash-pak, a grapple gun, and a micro-flare launcher. With these items mounted on the Nissan Dobberman drone, this robot will not be taking on any tanks, but it does have adequate armor for escorting a teammate into the battlezone and offering the technomancer (who is still hiding under cover) eyes on the combat.

Another trick that Umaro used is adapting the Dobberman drone to use as a vehicle. If there is such equipment to do this in 5th edition, I didn't find it in any of the books that our group possesses. Instead, this technomancer is sitting in the car or behind a corner as much as possible. In the first game I used her, she actually hid in the trunk of her own car.

Another change was that Umaro had maxed out his character's charisma. I am unsure why he did that. Logic or Intuition would have seemed to be more useful. I gave her some more balanced attributes.

I admit that her skills are not perfectly selected. There was some rules confusion when I was converting, but my GM caught the mistake. I fixed them enough to be rules legal (I think), but I never bothered fixing them enough to be a perfectly tuned munchkin beast. They're good enough.

As a very unusual weapon selection, I picked out a piece of non-weapon gear. The myomeric rope is a wonderful piece of equipment and surprisingly affordable. It seems that a robotic rope which moves on its own and a character who mentally controls machines would be a perfect match. I don't know why other players don't use the combination more often.

Her general methodology is this. When hacking, she hits hard and fast by combining complex forms, sprites, skills, and her generous edge points to hack locations and devices quickly. She can weave complex forms one after another and then hand them off to her sprites to manage. She gets what she needs and then covers her tracks or else jacks out before things get too bad. Her matrix defenses aren't all that they are cracked up to be, so she avoids cyberspace duels when she can. Similarly in the physical world, she will hide when combat erupts. She will send out a drone or her myomeric rope holding a cheap camera to scout for threats. With virtual eyes on the enemy, she then hacks them to brick their equipment or hijack their vehicles. She provides tactical information available to her teammates with augmented reality. She leaves the killing to the teammates.

Shortly after gaming starts, she will need to begin compiling and registering sprites. There seems to be no way to start the campaign with sprites already registered, so getting them set up is a priority to be accomplished with her very first downtime period. I also suggest quickly picking up the Quick Healer talent for 6 karma to help compensate for all of the stun damage that she gives to herself by performing resonance actions. Until these things are done, she probably won't be very impressive or useful except as a second-tier rigger. After those basics, I suggest investing in better body armor and a heavier vehicle which can transport the Dobberman and provide better armor. I also suggest using any additional karma to quickly boost her skills which are 1s to 2s and 3s. After these upgrades, however, she just might be able to deliver (with a lot of luck) on the promised character concept of the technomancer being the mystical character who can hack anything.

https://onedrive.live.com/redi...mp;ithint=file%2cpdf

Pg 98 has the costs for starting play with registered sprites.  It's 1 Karma per task (Level of Sprite equal to Character’s Resonance Rating) and comes with the restriction that the character Can only have a number of Registered Sprites equal to the character’s Charisma.

Which could be why the character's Charisma stat was originally maxed out, if they were designed to be a "summoner" and do most of their work through Sprites.

The conversion of a drone into a vehicle isn't possible yet.  The "rigger cocoon" was a thing from 4th edition that was popular with some.

Also, for future reference, here's a few pregens for 5th edition here http://forums.shadowruntableto...ex.php?topic=12908.0

Did you have any specific questions, solicitations for advice, etc?

Otherwise best of luck with the game!

In reply to nauthiz (msg # 2):
Pg 98 has the costs for starting play with registered sprites.  It's 1 Karma per task (Level of Sprite equal to Character’s Resonance Rating) and comes with the restriction that the character Can only have a number of Registered Sprites equal to the character’s Charisma.

Somehow, I missed this.

Which could be why the character's Charisma stat was originally maxed out, if they were designed to be a "summoner" and do most of their work through Sprites.

That would make a heck of a lot of sense. It must have been what Umaro was thinking.

Also, for future reference, here's a few pregens for 5th edition here http://forums.shadowruntableto...ex.php?topic=12908.0

This might be very useful in the future. I thank you.

Did you have any specific questions, solicitations for advice, etc?

Okay, here is a question off the top of my head.

Could an upscale comlink be used to run Decker software?

After a sprite's actions have all been used up, does that sprite need to be re-summoned or re-compiled?

Which is a better investment, a high-grade medkit or a low-grade Doc Wagon contract?

Am I crazy for thinking of using a myomeric rope as a dirt cheap drone?

>Could an upscale comlink be used to run Decker software?

No.  A comlink can perform any matrix action that has limits determined by Data Processing or Firewall (or technically Sleaze and Attack if you're using dongles from the Data Trails book), but it has no capacity to slot actual Cyberprograms.

>After a sprite's actions have all been used up, does that sprite need to be re-summoned or re-compiled?

When a sprite is out of tasks, it's done with you, you need to recompile another one.

If you have a Registered sprite however, you can attempt to Re-register it, which will potentially give you more tasks.


>Which is a better investment, a high-grade medkit or a low-grade Doc Wagon contract?

A medkit is a relatively cheap investment, especially if you have someone who actually can use it (first aid skill).  It can go anywhere you go, and it's available immediately.  If you are in the process of dying, and don't have a healing spell handy, a medkit might be all that keeps you on this side of the world.

Now, I assume by "low-grade Doc Wagon contract" you mean a Basic one.  How likely you are to get good money out of your contract depends on where you're probably going to be needing it.  Doc Wagon won't just blaze a trail into the Corp Black Site R&D facility you're stuck in the middle of having been pinned down in a firefight and gotten shot to bits.  They're going to ask for, and be required to wait for, permission from the Corp who owns the place.  You could be quite dead by then.

Oh, and don't forget that anything deemed requiring a High Threat Response is an extra 5,000Y per call.  If one of the Doc Wagon personnel gets killed, that's an extra 20,000Y tacked on to your bill.

Doc Wagon is great if you can afford it, and you operate in places you're likely to need them but not get tangled in red tape.  But if you're usually delving into the hearts of places you shouldn't be, you're probably better off with a good Medkit.


>Am I crazy for thinking of using a myomeric rope as a dirt cheap drone?

Depends on what you plan on doing with it.  I mean it's rope.  Yes, it's handy, but it's not quick, it's not independent, it's not stealthy, and unless you stick a camera on the end of it, it doesn't give you a second set of sensors to poke around into places.

That said, Shadowrun gives players a whole lot of "outside the box" options to play with.  They're really only limited by their imaginations and what the GM will let them get away with.  :p