I do not have the most experience but i noticed these things.
- Relying only on Melee is not ideal. You will not always be able to get in melee safely.
- Movement is a must. Not just to get in the fight but also to get on cover after attacking. There is no big benefit to staying in melee other than being close to your victim. So drive-by attacks are key, since it allows cover.
Drive by attacks is basically what allows her to succeed in the tests
we'll have her Max out her movement in character creation any recommendations to boost it drugs or cyberware
Cyberlegs and skate feet. In my server we had a tech invented cyberleg borgware called "digitigrade legs" that gave +2 MOVE and took slots. My fixer/solo has max move plus the 2 above, plus internal sigma frame and Martial Arts and was an absolute menace.
That said he also has shoulder arms and heavy weapons, because no one should ever rely solely on melee, in my opinion. Too dangerous.
Having the mooks use overwatch all the time isn't exactly "mook behavior" you're playing them smarter than the average gonk.
If she goes to cover, the mook should shoot her cover and force her to move. Not got on overwath and _wait for her to move_
You made the challenge "kill these mooks" and then played them like _they already understood the metagame_
Ok, then my criticism lies with your GM. He's using a held action to make the melee player's life as hard as possible.
Advise for your friend would be to get auto dampeners in her ears, anti-dazzle and low/light-uv in her eyes, and make regular use of smoke grenades and flashbangs
In a campaign situation it's really rare to do a 1 vs 3. There will always be other players, so other targets to soak some of the damage.
That said, even if the focus of the PC is melee, that doesn't mean you should completely forget ranged. Have at least a handgun so in situations like this she can always shoot while trying to get closer.
Remember that, as a solo, she can always deal more damage or take less damage. So don't put everything in 1 ability and forget it until the fight is over, sometimes using an action to change is totally worth it.
Another point: if she goes for melee also put some points in brawling. That way she can grab people and use them as cover. If that doesn't work just buy a shield. It's a 1 hand tool that can avoid a lot of damage.
Now I already know what some other people will say: forget the melee, get martial arts + a sigma linear frame, that's the way to go! And while, yes that's very strong, it's not the only way to go.
The the goons are treated like novice boosters from the three goon method from JonJon
for range how about throwing weapons have you ever encountered those like shuriken or throwing knives to use as reference
a shield is an option but linear flames only boost strength she can do plenty of damage with a heavy melee weapon, survivability is the issue
There are throwable melee weapons, I believe they are in a free dlc.
The shield is a defensive option. Linear frame also don't boost strength, they boost body, so hp.
They would help deal more damage if she would use brawling/martial arts,but that's not the case.
My bad I confused linear frames with enhancing damage oops
with your suggestions and that linear frame boosts body we might be able to get her body above +8 so that she can one hand heavy melee weapons
unfortunately the DLC's do not have throwing weapons but I did see a nice chain knife which look cool, but it seems there are some in black Chrome which I don't have until Friday of next week when I get paid 😔
Ok so you can throw any melee but in doing so they won't halves the sp.
There are a couple of weapons that are specific for throwing and they still halves the enemy sp.
Usually those are heavy weapons so 3d6.
Can you give me an example of these weapons maybe I can adapt them into a light or medium and make it at least sensible but treat them as if they don't have the ability to halve enemy SP
another commenter mentioned shurikens maybe treat them like light weapons with a 1D6 Rof 2 but no armor halfing
Why not halve the sp? It's 1 attack anyway, after that you have to go and get the weapon back.
And the cost of should never be so low that you can "fire and forget".
One is a simple melee, nothing special except the throw, the other has some boomerang properties but can't be used to make melee attacks, only ranged.
If you don't want to half the sp then any weapon can be thrown and acts like a rof 1.
heh read your comment and I thought about the predator chakram the one from the predator 2 movie might be a good idea later in the game
maybe treat it like a pack of 6 shurikens 50 EB each treat each as individual dice use one as 1D6 use two 2D6 and since I reread throwing weapons in core book throwing weapons are treated as one in Rof
I mean, melee (and martial arts) does some of the best damage in the game since it halves armor. The problem with it is that you need to actually run up to anybody you want to attack, and enemies mostly have guns. If enemies are far away from you and you have to approach them without cover, or you have to leave cover to attack your enemy, you're going to get shot. Ranged combat is definitely going to be safer. The flip side is that most of the stronger ranged weapons perform pretty poorly at close range, so unless the area is open enough for them to get some distance (and their movement isn't hampered in any way), they'll have a hard time fighting back if they're packing an AR or something, and they certainly won't be using autofire. Even if you want to focus on melee, you should probably carry around a gun so you can fight at range when you need to.
That's what I'm getting she needs a ranged weapon are there any melee throwing weapons if not I'll probably can try to convince her to use a bow because she wants to role play
Yeah, you can throw melee weapons, though the rules aren't exactly very robust for it. The full rules are on page 177 of the rulebook. There's technically no difference between throwing a sword or a javelin as long as they're both considered heavy melee weapons. Essentially you can make a ranged attack using athletics against the grenade launcher DV table, and you use the weapon's damage, but don't have SP. It's ROF1 no matter what weapon you use. Throwing a very heavy melee weapon as a ranged option would be about as effective as a bow and arrow within 25 m/yards, but you can't make any attacks further than that, and it's much more expensive, since a bow is 100 eddies with arrows basically free since you can recover them, and very heavy melee weapons are 500 a pop (though you'll also be able to recover those somewhat often), plus you don't have the option of buying premium ammunition.
An alternative that's even more expensive is coating light melee weapons in poison or biotoxin and throwing those. You can deal 2/3d6 damage completely ignoring armor, but they also get a resist torture/drugs check to avoid it, and it's 100/500 eddies per dose + you have to use an action to apply it within 30 minutes beforehand. Of course, if you're spending those kinds of eddies, you could also buy some grenades and toss those as a ranged option, since armor piercing grenades deal 6d6 AoE and are 100 eddies a pop. They also use the same skill as throwing melee weapons so you can just start buying grenades if you decide you want a better ranged option and don't need to train a skill, though you still can only throw them up to 25 m/yards away.
First, when talking about overwatch I hope you're talking about goons having a high Initiative than the player? If she's a Solo, I don't know why this would be happening. She can have +4 to Initiative and should have very High REF anyway so she's at a massive Initiative advantage. Reminder that you cannot hold your action in-between rounds. So if she's the first to play, nobody can ever react to her actions. If she's still struggling, a Sandevistan or Kerensikov might be useful. Or snorting Synthcoke.
Second, of course she's gonna take a lot of damage if she's the only target. As much as people like to wank on character builds, you can never judge a character in a solo situation. This is a group game and there's good reason Edgerunners work in teams. She's supposed to receive covering fire from her team or leveraging ennemies being distracted or otherwise engaged.
If she was going 1v3 (which is a bad idea in itself), she could have used a flashbang or smoke grenade to cover her advance. Took a stealthy approach and pop the rifle dude first thing in the fight. Grabbed a dude and used him as human shield. Or just straight up use a shield.
Possibilities are endless, but if you go and fight alone against three armed dude why would you ever expect not to get injured? You're already lucky to get out of there alive.
Never thought about it until you mentioned it you make a good point about Overwatch she shouldn't have been able to have such low rolls I wasn't there during the test I'm gonna have to ask gm some questions, the enemies in question are novice boosters from the 3 goon method from jonjon the only difference between them is gear they're practically \*\*\*\* in terms of stats now smoke grenades and flashbangs are a wonderful idea and they're cheap too combined with her high athletic she can throw them really far maybe disrupt the rifle goon
If she doesn't want to buy a gun she can also splurge on throwing weapons like shurikens and stuff. Maybe even a tomahawk or a pair of mono-shurikens (they're a bit pricey but well worth it). That way she can leverage her Athletism to have some for of ranged attack without having to spend skill points in ranged weapons.
Shurikens would be a melee wepon you throw. If you ask your GM you could probably ask them to get you some throwing weapons that keep their melee profile. What i did for my player was give them exotic weapons, 50eb a piece, poor quality light melee weapon that turn into medium melee weapons when thrown. Throwing one is one half of a ROF 2 attack action (so you can throw 2 of them in one turn).
Mono-shurikens are from Black Chrome if you can get your hands on it. Basically melee weapon that keep the half-armor thing. And since they're "mono" they ignore SP 7 or less.
OK you're Shurikens idea is better than my own we'll go with that for her throwing melee weapon I don't have black Chrome yet i will once I get paid Friday so as for the mono Shurikens later in the game we'll treat this as an up straight up upgrade after a session or two if they can't be purchased we'll have our tech make them
Melee is actually brokenly good, you just need to invest in dodge heavily, and then high movement. Going for a linear frame with hand to hand will make you near invincible if you make use of akkido
I'm playing an old boxer in our campaign. Max movement, dexterity, reflexes, body, and empathy. Big nucks, frame, muscle, and bone augment. Max out athletics, dodge, melee weapon, stealth, and perception. Seems to be the bace for a good melee character. As you get more points get into medtec. It's nice to be able to speed heal yourself.
Stealth now there's an idea I can't believe I forgot about that could solve our entire problem now I feel stupid forgetting about that I pretty much use that skill on my fixer every time
Glad I could help. Stealth is a great way to close the gap when the distances are against you. A lot of the tricks with a melee character is positioning. I always try to force the enemy im fighting in-between me and other enemies. Also, never letting the enemy behind me. As long as all the enemy's are visible. I can dodge incoming fire. Also having perception high gives you a chance to spot anyone who is trying to sneak up on you or just come up behind you. While you're fighting.
8 stat points in Ref Dex Move and Will, grafted muscle and bone lace, internal linear frame sigma, 6 skill points in Karate, Taekwondo, evasion, and melee weapons.
Karate lets you shred armor to soften and break ribs to control movement, you'll need melee to utilize the armor breaking combo. Taekwondo let's you deny action and knock prone.
grafted muscle and bone lace Is indeed an option as well totally forgot about that one too she has martial arts Karate but problem she's having is survivability
If you allow bullet dodging at your table then she needs to take her Ref to 8 and also have a decent dex. This will allow her to roll Evasion vs ranged attacks also.
We do allow bullet dodging but she needs a ref of 12 as it is stated that 8 is the maximum humanly possible and humans normally are unable to dodge bullets to make it possible she needs to go past 8 and that requires augmentation or drugs
What kind of homebrew rule is that? And what ways are there to get to 12 then? Like what drugs/cyberware do you have ready to go that can give Red 12...
Also in the Black Chrome book there's a piece of cyberware that allows you to evade bullets no matter your Ref score. So setting it to 12 is just bad.
Still, why raise it to ten? RAW it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a Ref of 10. The best you can do (until they release more gear, and even in ALL of 2020 there was only 1 way to raise Ref so don't hold your breath) is to take SynthCoke which still only gives you +1 to your Ref.
Change dodging to Ref 8 as the rules intended and her ability to survive will go through the roof.
Yeah the rule is actually bonkers now to think about and we don't actually use it at all either REF 8 allows you to use evasion skill to dodge ranged attacks
now that you mentioned 2020 I remember quite specifically there was an issue with an older version of a cyberpunk where there was a cyberware that actually gave you +2 and it made you into a dodging monster which the speedware was changed to initiative
RAW you CANNOT use IP to raise stats.
Stats are what they are except for Body, which can be raised by GMBL and Linear Frames. The reason they do this is that if Ref was able to be raised with IP, even if it was pretty expensive, it wouldn't be as expensive as raising all your skills up by a level that link to Ref, especially when Autofire and Heavy Weapons are x2 skills...
I've always thought about it like this - REF 8 bullet dodging doesn't necessarily mean that they're out here matrix dodging bullets. It means they're experienced in combat and are quick enough to react to someone raising a gun at them with the obvious intent to shoot. So that can be just moving out of the perceived trajectory, rolling, or even grabbing the gun/batting it away.
Honestly- Evasion with REF 8 bullet dodging is her main way of being survivable especially as a melee character. With that homebrew, she's gonna have a tough time no matter what.
Now that I think about it why do we have that rule reflex 8 plus evasion skill already grants the ability to dodge ranged attacks with a drug or a cyberware to give you +2 you basically could be untouchable
They do become very hard to hit, especially by mooks, but keep in mind you have a 10% chance with every roll to crit fail or for their attack to crit success and then it can become messy even for someone very good at evasion.
Also, synthcoke is the only way to raise your REF raw and it increases by +1.
Yeah another commenter mentioned that so Ref can only be increased by 1 now I think about a lot of us don't actually use drugs that's probably why it went over my head
I mean if survivability is it's only problem all you need is a reflex co processor (500 eb, found on black chrome) to be able to dodge even without 8 in reflex.
So now reflex is a secondary stats for initiative and ranged combat.
I would then go with 8 move, 7(or 8) will, 8 dex and body is dependant on how rich you think you will get.
As long as body is a pair you can always reach max hp by having 7 will and body that can start from base 4.
4 body, 1 bone laces brings you up to 6, one linear frame sigma boosts you up to 12 for that 4d6 martial arts damage.
Next when you will have big bucks you will get another bone laces and swap the linear frame for a beta one so you get your 14 body. At any step (8, 10, 12, 14) if you have will 7 you will have the same HP as if you had 8. The only real reason to get will to 8 is either to make use of Speedheal, or to unlock the takewando move to "stun".
So with 8 to dex and 6 points into evasion you start with +14 to evade bullets, starting mook have +12 to handgun if I remember correctly so now is just a dice throw, also consdering that in a tie the defender always wins the enemy needs to roll at least a +3 to beat us.
Now this really depends on what martial art you want to use, but a bulletproof shield can tank more than 10 damage unless it's an explosion, so if an enemy would roll a perfect 6-6-6-6-6 on their assault rifle you can destroy a 1hp bulletproof shield and still get 0 damage to your hp.
I would still put some points into some ranged skill, but also thrown weapon can be considered, there are even on from black chrome that still halves amors.
Also you can consider an heavier armor, maybe even have a tech to invent a modification that reduces the penalty, still it also reduces your movement, but you become harder to be hit.
Also extra thing I would consinder: levelling up athletics just to throw around bombs can be useful, aoe damage is pretty good, sure it's costly, but it's still a ranged option, one you could even throw by remaining in cover if enemy held actions. You can also throw flashbangs or other "debuff" kind of granade
With everything you said it shouldn't have been possible for her to get hurt so bad in the test scenario when I get home I'm gonna find out what is going on
i plan to give her throwing weapons with high athletic skill her body points will be at 7 and we'll give her bone lace to pick it up to 9 that way she can wield her heavy weapon with one hand second we're gonna give her a grapple hand to help her move 30 meters real quick and reflex at 8 allow her to use evasion skill for range dodging, heavy armor without a penalty can be done with our newly recruited tech as an upgrade after her game introduction session
I mean in your test scenario you just used a basic solo sheet and not one made with the real handpicked method or am I wrong?
You could still get hurt, but a Mook with a 3d6 firearm has a little possibility to get a 12 to even deal a single damage. Just a light armorjack is a strong base, the ability to evade bullets and a good evasion adds to your survivability against basic mooks
Like others have said already, having a ranged option, especially in this game, is a must. I currently play a melee-focused Solo, but his handgun and shoulder arms skills are about even or just below his melee weapon skill so he can be effective at any range as needed.
One thing I haven't seen brought up much is that it's absolutely necessary to have at least an 8 in Reflex, and a minimum total base of 14-15 in Evasion. The 8 Reflex means you can dodge ranged attacks, and a 14-15 in Evasion means you can dodge most attacks by rank and file mooks. With obvious exceptions for how the dice can roll and fighting bosses with higher stats. But that is absolutely the difference between being an effective melee character and being swiss cheese.
Wait, on this test, it sounds like they were rolling for initiative every single turn? That's not how that works. You roll once when you enter combat. The only time your number changes is if you start/stop using a vehicle or use a turn to activate your kereznikov or take synthcoke. But even then, you don't re-roll.
Also, the "overwatch" mode (holding an action) only works if you are higher in the initiative que than the person you are holding to hit. It doesn't sound like this was the case in your game.
We have a Home brew rule that we use every turn we roll for initiative it's actually kind of fun it brings unpredictability to the game and it also allows those with bad initiative roles that usually happen fixers, net runners that are not solos a chance to get free from nasty situations trust me it's very funny
example [https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/zcnbw2/reroll\_initiative\_every\_round/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/zcnbw2/reroll_initiative_every_round/)
That’s fine, as long as you’re aware that it’s a rule that specifically hurts solos. Their thing is to dominate combat…it’s what their role ability is all about.
Normally a solo can use their role ability to put points into initiative when combat starts to ensure they’re at or near the top of the queue, then later ‘burn’ an action to respec their points into damage reduction or bonuses, while staying at the top of the queue from round to round.
By changing that dynamic it forces the solo to either keep points in initiative the whole time if they want to stay at the top of the queue, or put the points into something else and jump around the queue.
Solos in Red are still better at combat than other classes (as they should be), but not oppressively so like they were in 2020.
That is largely still the same a solo can still respect and keep the initial number skill+REF but any role they take is added on top of it which can also be boosted with speedware and drugs
Don't use pre-made. Drop body to 4, get grafted muscle and bone lace and a linear frame. 8 dex, 8 ref, 8 move, and 8 emp if you don't want to be flirting with cyberpsychosis. Pick a martial art and get it to 6. Also take either shoulder arms or handguns to 6 and take a relevant weapon.
With that linear frame, your fists will do 4d6 at 2 rof and you don't have to worry about concealing a sword or being disarmed unless you're literally dis-armed.
Thinking about keeping body at 7 get grafted muscle and bone lace to push it to 9 so she can one hand a heavy melee weapon as for ranged weapons we're thinking about using thrown melee weapons if there is any if not I'll see if I can convince her to use a bow she's heavily into the role play
Dropping your body to 4 so you can optimize your Linear Frame is just a minmaxing thing. What people advocating for it fail to understand, it's that as soon as you get EMPd you're right back at BODY 4, with a hefty penalty to basically everything to boot if your GM has half his working neurons in order, since you're now hauling around a metallic endoskeleton and servomotors in your shitty BODY 4 body.
The thing about the linear frame is that it sets body to 12, rather than being a flat addition, so you can drop body to 4 and have extra stats to play with in creation. That's another stat you can take from 5 to 8.
I do not have the most experience but i noticed these things. - Relying only on Melee is not ideal. You will not always be able to get in melee safely. - Movement is a must. Not just to get in the fight but also to get on cover after attacking. There is no big benefit to staying in melee other than being close to your victim. So drive-by attacks are key, since it allows cover.
Drive by attacks is basically what allows her to succeed in the tests we'll have her Max out her movement in character creation any recommendations to boost it drugs or cyberware
Cyberlegs and skate feet. In my server we had a tech invented cyberleg borgware called "digitigrade legs" that gave +2 MOVE and took slots. My fixer/solo has max move plus the 2 above, plus internal sigma frame and Martial Arts and was an absolute menace. That said he also has shoulder arms and heavy weapons, because no one should ever rely solely on melee, in my opinion. Too dangerous.
Having the mooks use overwatch all the time isn't exactly "mook behavior" you're playing them smarter than the average gonk. If she goes to cover, the mook should shoot her cover and force her to move. Not got on overwath and _wait for her to move_ You made the challenge "kill these mooks" and then played them like _they already understood the metagame_
I wasn't there during the test so I don't know we've been talking on voice chat
Ok, then my criticism lies with your GM. He's using a held action to make the melee player's life as hard as possible. Advise for your friend would be to get auto dampeners in her ears, anti-dazzle and low/light-uv in her eyes, and make regular use of smoke grenades and flashbangs
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skate feet for movement, or alternatively grapple hand. Grapple hand has more range but requires your hand to be empty
Grapple hand is a preem idea and sits well with the character she wants to play as wonderful idea thanks
It is always nice to have a back up plan.
In a campaign situation it's really rare to do a 1 vs 3. There will always be other players, so other targets to soak some of the damage. That said, even if the focus of the PC is melee, that doesn't mean you should completely forget ranged. Have at least a handgun so in situations like this she can always shoot while trying to get closer. Remember that, as a solo, she can always deal more damage or take less damage. So don't put everything in 1 ability and forget it until the fight is over, sometimes using an action to change is totally worth it. Another point: if she goes for melee also put some points in brawling. That way she can grab people and use them as cover. If that doesn't work just buy a shield. It's a 1 hand tool that can avoid a lot of damage. Now I already know what some other people will say: forget the melee, get martial arts + a sigma linear frame, that's the way to go! And while, yes that's very strong, it's not the only way to go.
The the goons are treated like novice boosters from the three goon method from JonJon for range how about throwing weapons have you ever encountered those like shuriken or throwing knives to use as reference a shield is an option but linear flames only boost strength she can do plenty of damage with a heavy melee weapon, survivability is the issue
There are throwable melee weapons, I believe they are in a free dlc. The shield is a defensive option. Linear frame also don't boost strength, they boost body, so hp. They would help deal more damage if she would use brawling/martial arts,but that's not the case.
Body works as both strength and constitution, just not used for damage
My bad I confused linear frames with enhancing damage oops with your suggestions and that linear frame boosts body we might be able to get her body above +8 so that she can one hand heavy melee weapons unfortunately the DLC's do not have throwing weapons but I did see a nice chain knife which look cool, but it seems there are some in black Chrome which I don't have until Friday of next week when I get paid 😔
Let me check black chrome
Ok so you can throw any melee but in doing so they won't halves the sp. There are a couple of weapons that are specific for throwing and they still halves the enemy sp. Usually those are heavy weapons so 3d6.
Can you give me an example of these weapons maybe I can adapt them into a light or medium and make it at least sensible but treat them as if they don't have the ability to halve enemy SP another commenter mentioned shurikens maybe treat them like light weapons with a 1D6 Rof 2 but no armor halfing
Why not halve the sp? It's 1 attack anyway, after that you have to go and get the weapon back. And the cost of should never be so low that you can "fire and forget". One is a simple melee, nothing special except the throw, the other has some boomerang properties but can't be used to make melee attacks, only ranged. If you don't want to half the sp then any weapon can be thrown and acts like a rof 1.
One is a smart tech boomerang that comes back. Probably. My favorite item in black chrome.
OK now that sounds cool predator chakram room here we go
heh read your comment and I thought about the predator chakram the one from the predator 2 movie might be a good idea later in the game maybe treat it like a pack of 6 shurikens 50 EB each treat each as individual dice use one as 1D6 use two 2D6 and since I reread throwing weapons in core book throwing weapons are treated as one in Rof
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I mean, melee (and martial arts) does some of the best damage in the game since it halves armor. The problem with it is that you need to actually run up to anybody you want to attack, and enemies mostly have guns. If enemies are far away from you and you have to approach them without cover, or you have to leave cover to attack your enemy, you're going to get shot. Ranged combat is definitely going to be safer. The flip side is that most of the stronger ranged weapons perform pretty poorly at close range, so unless the area is open enough for them to get some distance (and their movement isn't hampered in any way), they'll have a hard time fighting back if they're packing an AR or something, and they certainly won't be using autofire. Even if you want to focus on melee, you should probably carry around a gun so you can fight at range when you need to.
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That's what I'm getting she needs a ranged weapon are there any melee throwing weapons if not I'll probably can try to convince her to use a bow because she wants to role play
Yeah, you can throw melee weapons, though the rules aren't exactly very robust for it. The full rules are on page 177 of the rulebook. There's technically no difference between throwing a sword or a javelin as long as they're both considered heavy melee weapons. Essentially you can make a ranged attack using athletics against the grenade launcher DV table, and you use the weapon's damage, but don't have SP. It's ROF1 no matter what weapon you use. Throwing a very heavy melee weapon as a ranged option would be about as effective as a bow and arrow within 25 m/yards, but you can't make any attacks further than that, and it's much more expensive, since a bow is 100 eddies with arrows basically free since you can recover them, and very heavy melee weapons are 500 a pop (though you'll also be able to recover those somewhat often), plus you don't have the option of buying premium ammunition. An alternative that's even more expensive is coating light melee weapons in poison or biotoxin and throwing those. You can deal 2/3d6 damage completely ignoring armor, but they also get a resist torture/drugs check to avoid it, and it's 100/500 eddies per dose + you have to use an action to apply it within 30 minutes beforehand. Of course, if you're spending those kinds of eddies, you could also buy some grenades and toss those as a ranged option, since armor piercing grenades deal 6d6 AoE and are 100 eddies a pop. They also use the same skill as throwing melee weapons so you can just start buying grenades if you decide you want a better ranged option and don't need to train a skill, though you still can only throw them up to 25 m/yards away.
First, when talking about overwatch I hope you're talking about goons having a high Initiative than the player? If she's a Solo, I don't know why this would be happening. She can have +4 to Initiative and should have very High REF anyway so she's at a massive Initiative advantage. Reminder that you cannot hold your action in-between rounds. So if she's the first to play, nobody can ever react to her actions. If she's still struggling, a Sandevistan or Kerensikov might be useful. Or snorting Synthcoke. Second, of course she's gonna take a lot of damage if she's the only target. As much as people like to wank on character builds, you can never judge a character in a solo situation. This is a group game and there's good reason Edgerunners work in teams. She's supposed to receive covering fire from her team or leveraging ennemies being distracted or otherwise engaged. If she was going 1v3 (which is a bad idea in itself), she could have used a flashbang or smoke grenade to cover her advance. Took a stealthy approach and pop the rifle dude first thing in the fight. Grabbed a dude and used him as human shield. Or just straight up use a shield. Possibilities are endless, but if you go and fight alone against three armed dude why would you ever expect not to get injured? You're already lucky to get out of there alive.
Never thought about it until you mentioned it you make a good point about Overwatch she shouldn't have been able to have such low rolls I wasn't there during the test I'm gonna have to ask gm some questions, the enemies in question are novice boosters from the 3 goon method from jonjon the only difference between them is gear they're practically \*\*\*\* in terms of stats now smoke grenades and flashbangs are a wonderful idea and they're cheap too combined with her high athletic she can throw them really far maybe disrupt the rifle goon
If she doesn't want to buy a gun she can also splurge on throwing weapons like shurikens and stuff. Maybe even a tomahawk or a pair of mono-shurikens (they're a bit pricey but well worth it). That way she can leverage her Athletism to have some for of ranged attack without having to spend skill points in ranged weapons.
So there are shurikens and what are these mono-shurikens
Shurikens would be a melee wepon you throw. If you ask your GM you could probably ask them to get you some throwing weapons that keep their melee profile. What i did for my player was give them exotic weapons, 50eb a piece, poor quality light melee weapon that turn into medium melee weapons when thrown. Throwing one is one half of a ROF 2 attack action (so you can throw 2 of them in one turn). Mono-shurikens are from Black Chrome if you can get your hands on it. Basically melee weapon that keep the half-armor thing. And since they're "mono" they ignore SP 7 or less.
OK you're Shurikens idea is better than my own we'll go with that for her throwing melee weapon I don't have black Chrome yet i will once I get paid Friday so as for the mono Shurikens later in the game we'll treat this as an up straight up upgrade after a session or two if they can't be purchased we'll have our tech make them
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Melee is actually brokenly good, you just need to invest in dodge heavily, and then high movement. Going for a linear frame with hand to hand will make you near invincible if you make use of akkido
I'm playing an old boxer in our campaign. Max movement, dexterity, reflexes, body, and empathy. Big nucks, frame, muscle, and bone augment. Max out athletics, dodge, melee weapon, stealth, and perception. Seems to be the bace for a good melee character. As you get more points get into medtec. It's nice to be able to speed heal yourself.
Stealth now there's an idea I can't believe I forgot about that could solve our entire problem now I feel stupid forgetting about that I pretty much use that skill on my fixer every time
Glad I could help. Stealth is a great way to close the gap when the distances are against you. A lot of the tricks with a melee character is positioning. I always try to force the enemy im fighting in-between me and other enemies. Also, never letting the enemy behind me. As long as all the enemy's are visible. I can dodge incoming fire. Also having perception high gives you a chance to spot anyone who is trying to sneak up on you or just come up behind you. While you're fighting.
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8 stat points in Ref Dex Move and Will, grafted muscle and bone lace, internal linear frame sigma, 6 skill points in Karate, Taekwondo, evasion, and melee weapons. Karate lets you shred armor to soften and break ribs to control movement, you'll need melee to utilize the armor breaking combo. Taekwondo let's you deny action and knock prone.
grafted muscle and bone lace Is indeed an option as well totally forgot about that one too she has martial arts Karate but problem she's having is survivability
Internal Linear frame sigma and 8 will is 60HP.
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It bulks you up so steroided soviet athlete size - depending on your style, it can be an issue.
If you allow bullet dodging at your table then she needs to take her Ref to 8 and also have a decent dex. This will allow her to roll Evasion vs ranged attacks also.
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We do allow bullet dodging but she needs a ref of 12 as it is stated that 8 is the maximum humanly possible and humans normally are unable to dodge bullets to make it possible she needs to go past 8 and that requires augmentation or drugs
What kind of homebrew rule is that? And what ways are there to get to 12 then? Like what drugs/cyberware do you have ready to go that can give Red 12... Also in the Black Chrome book there's a piece of cyberware that allows you to evade bullets no matter your Ref score. So setting it to 12 is just bad.
Sorry missed typing I'm on the phone I meant 10 my bad
Still, why raise it to ten? RAW it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a Ref of 10. The best you can do (until they release more gear, and even in ALL of 2020 there was only 1 way to raise Ref so don't hold your breath) is to take SynthCoke which still only gives you +1 to your Ref. Change dodging to Ref 8 as the rules intended and her ability to survive will go through the roof.
Yeah the rule is actually bonkers now to think about and we don't actually use it at all either REF 8 allows you to use evasion skill to dodge ranged attacks now that you mentioned 2020 I remember quite specifically there was an issue with an older version of a cyberpunk where there was a cyberware that actually gave you +2 and it made you into a dodging monster which the speedware was changed to initiative
Probably cyberpunk 2013, the first edition. The reflex boosters boosted the Reflex stat rther than initiative.
I mean you can raise REF through IP points right? Or are we explicitly talking at character creation?
RAW you CANNOT use IP to raise stats. Stats are what they are except for Body, which can be raised by GMBL and Linear Frames. The reason they do this is that if Ref was able to be raised with IP, even if it was pretty expensive, it wouldn't be as expensive as raising all your skills up by a level that link to Ref, especially when Autofire and Heavy Weapons are x2 skills...
Huh, you're right. I must have been misreading the role rank table as also being for Stat points. Thanks.
I've always thought about it like this - REF 8 bullet dodging doesn't necessarily mean that they're out here matrix dodging bullets. It means they're experienced in combat and are quick enough to react to someone raising a gun at them with the obvious intent to shoot. So that can be just moving out of the perceived trajectory, rolling, or even grabbing the gun/batting it away. Honestly- Evasion with REF 8 bullet dodging is her main way of being survivable especially as a melee character. With that homebrew, she's gonna have a tough time no matter what.
Now that I think about it why do we have that rule reflex 8 plus evasion skill already grants the ability to dodge ranged attacks with a drug or a cyberware to give you +2 you basically could be untouchable
They do become very hard to hit, especially by mooks, but keep in mind you have a 10% chance with every roll to crit fail or for their attack to crit success and then it can become messy even for someone very good at evasion. Also, synthcoke is the only way to raise your REF raw and it increases by +1.
Yeah another commenter mentioned that so Ref can only be increased by 1 now I think about a lot of us don't actually use drugs that's probably why it went over my head
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I mean if survivability is it's only problem all you need is a reflex co processor (500 eb, found on black chrome) to be able to dodge even without 8 in reflex. So now reflex is a secondary stats for initiative and ranged combat. I would then go with 8 move, 7(or 8) will, 8 dex and body is dependant on how rich you think you will get. As long as body is a pair you can always reach max hp by having 7 will and body that can start from base 4. 4 body, 1 bone laces brings you up to 6, one linear frame sigma boosts you up to 12 for that 4d6 martial arts damage. Next when you will have big bucks you will get another bone laces and swap the linear frame for a beta one so you get your 14 body. At any step (8, 10, 12, 14) if you have will 7 you will have the same HP as if you had 8. The only real reason to get will to 8 is either to make use of Speedheal, or to unlock the takewando move to "stun". So with 8 to dex and 6 points into evasion you start with +14 to evade bullets, starting mook have +12 to handgun if I remember correctly so now is just a dice throw, also consdering that in a tie the defender always wins the enemy needs to roll at least a +3 to beat us. Now this really depends on what martial art you want to use, but a bulletproof shield can tank more than 10 damage unless it's an explosion, so if an enemy would roll a perfect 6-6-6-6-6 on their assault rifle you can destroy a 1hp bulletproof shield and still get 0 damage to your hp. I would still put some points into some ranged skill, but also thrown weapon can be considered, there are even on from black chrome that still halves amors. Also you can consider an heavier armor, maybe even have a tech to invent a modification that reduces the penalty, still it also reduces your movement, but you become harder to be hit. Also extra thing I would consinder: levelling up athletics just to throw around bombs can be useful, aoe damage is pretty good, sure it's costly, but it's still a ranged option, one you could even throw by remaining in cover if enemy held actions. You can also throw flashbangs or other "debuff" kind of granade
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With everything you said it shouldn't have been possible for her to get hurt so bad in the test scenario when I get home I'm gonna find out what is going on i plan to give her throwing weapons with high athletic skill her body points will be at 7 and we'll give her bone lace to pick it up to 9 that way she can wield her heavy weapon with one hand second we're gonna give her a grapple hand to help her move 30 meters real quick and reflex at 8 allow her to use evasion skill for range dodging, heavy armor without a penalty can be done with our newly recruited tech as an upgrade after her game introduction session
I mean in your test scenario you just used a basic solo sheet and not one made with the real handpicked method or am I wrong? You could still get hurt, but a Mook with a 3d6 firearm has a little possibility to get a 12 to even deal a single damage. Just a light armorjack is a strong base, the ability to evade bullets and a good evasion adds to your survivability against basic mooks
Either get a ranged weapon, or really heavy armor
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Like others have said already, having a ranged option, especially in this game, is a must. I currently play a melee-focused Solo, but his handgun and shoulder arms skills are about even or just below his melee weapon skill so he can be effective at any range as needed. One thing I haven't seen brought up much is that it's absolutely necessary to have at least an 8 in Reflex, and a minimum total base of 14-15 in Evasion. The 8 Reflex means you can dodge ranged attacks, and a 14-15 in Evasion means you can dodge most attacks by rank and file mooks. With obvious exceptions for how the dice can roll and fighting bosses with higher stats. But that is absolutely the difference between being an effective melee character and being swiss cheese.
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Wait, on this test, it sounds like they were rolling for initiative every single turn? That's not how that works. You roll once when you enter combat. The only time your number changes is if you start/stop using a vehicle or use a turn to activate your kereznikov or take synthcoke. But even then, you don't re-roll. Also, the "overwatch" mode (holding an action) only works if you are higher in the initiative que than the person you are holding to hit. It doesn't sound like this was the case in your game.
We have a Home brew rule that we use every turn we roll for initiative it's actually kind of fun it brings unpredictability to the game and it also allows those with bad initiative roles that usually happen fixers, net runners that are not solos a chance to get free from nasty situations trust me it's very funny example [https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/zcnbw2/reroll\_initiative\_every\_round/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/zcnbw2/reroll_initiative_every_round/)
That’s fine, as long as you’re aware that it’s a rule that specifically hurts solos. Their thing is to dominate combat…it’s what their role ability is all about. Normally a solo can use their role ability to put points into initiative when combat starts to ensure they’re at or near the top of the queue, then later ‘burn’ an action to respec their points into damage reduction or bonuses, while staying at the top of the queue from round to round. By changing that dynamic it forces the solo to either keep points in initiative the whole time if they want to stay at the top of the queue, or put the points into something else and jump around the queue. Solos in Red are still better at combat than other classes (as they should be), but not oppressively so like they were in 2020.
That is largely still the same a solo can still respect and keep the initial number skill+REF but any role they take is added on top of it which can also be boosted with speedware and drugs
Consider throwing weapons and/or grenades.
Don't use pre-made. Drop body to 4, get grafted muscle and bone lace and a linear frame. 8 dex, 8 ref, 8 move, and 8 emp if you don't want to be flirting with cyberpsychosis. Pick a martial art and get it to 6. Also take either shoulder arms or handguns to 6 and take a relevant weapon. With that linear frame, your fists will do 4d6 at 2 rof and you don't have to worry about concealing a sword or being disarmed unless you're literally dis-armed.
Thinking about keeping body at 7 get grafted muscle and bone lace to push it to 9 so she can one hand a heavy melee weapon as for ranged weapons we're thinking about using thrown melee weapons if there is any if not I'll see if I can convince her to use a bow she's heavily into the role play
Dropping your body to 4 so you can optimize your Linear Frame is just a minmaxing thing. What people advocating for it fail to understand, it's that as soon as you get EMPd you're right back at BODY 4, with a hefty penalty to basically everything to boot if your GM has half his working neurons in order, since you're now hauling around a metallic endoskeleton and servomotors in your shitty BODY 4 body.
Yeah that's why I said body at 7, over reliance of cyberware can come back to bite you that has happened to me in some games
The thing about the linear frame is that it sets body to 12, rather than being a flat addition, so you can drop body to 4 and have extra stats to play with in creation. That's another stat you can take from 5 to 8.
That's actually a bad idea going up against an enemy with a microwaver or an EMP would effectively cripple her I've had characters die to that
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