Those are the fundamental rules for surviving in the Shadowrun world. Beyond that, individuals have their own rules—codes, or lack thereof. There are people who steal from the rich and give to the poor, and people who steal from the rich and laugh at the poor. People who are flamboyant, pulling off capers in grand style, and people who are never seen, not for a second, by those they don’t want to see them.
The point is, there are all types of shadowrunners out there, and it is time now to create one and take to the streets of 2075. Take your best shot, fight the odds, hope for the best, and show everyone you have the guts and the skills to do the impossible. You may never be accepted in “civilized” society, but you can take pride in the fact that you’ve earned everything you own—including your freedom.
A spreadsheet, word processing document, or pen and paper will help keep things clear and organized as you go through the character creation process. Organization makes it easier to track the priorities you have selected for your character, along with your Karma expenditures. It will also prove useful in calculating Essence and other elements as well as subtracting costs from your resources. As you go through character creation, note any bonuses you receive from Qualities and augmentations on the character sheet, as these may modify the statistics of the character at the end of the character creation process.
Character creation involves many decisions, from choosing the right skills to purchasing the appropriate gear. It could take as little as an hour to build a character or as long as an evening. It is helpful to have an idea of what you want to play and what you what your character to do before getting together for a home game of Shadowrun.
The sidebar Common Character Concepts and their Roles Explained gives you a snapshot of the character types your most likely to find in the shadows. Disparate characters band together as runner teams; blending their talents, skills, and specialized expertise to complete missions they would not be able to pull off as individuals. Some runner teams come together for a specific job, while others stay together throughout their entire careers, becoming as close-knit as family. This gallery is just a starting point—there are characters in the shadows that don’t conform to any list. The one you create will be uniquely yours.
You may start with an idea of what sort of character you want to play and some basic background concepts. The character may be an ex-soldier from a national government looking to use her combat skills on the streets. Or a former corporate headhunter forced out of the megacorporation by an ambitious rival and now using his negotiating savvy and deal-making skills to survive the shadows. There are second-generation runners, born to the life and learning the skills of the trade from their SINless parents. It’s not unusual for a bounty hunter who collects pelts of paranormal critters or tracks down fugitives to engage in a little shadowrunning to supplement his income. The character may have grown up in a street gang, and he sees shadowrunning as a way to get out of the gutter. Or the character may have just gotten out of jail and be eager to see what she can do with the skills she learned and the connections she made on the inside.
You do not need to understand all the nuances of character creation and character statistics to get started. That will come with time. To start, have a concept in mind and dive in. Your character will quickly become unique—and all yours.
Players and the gamemaster should work together to develop a team of characters that are suited to the campaign. The character creation rules as presented in this chapter involve the creation of an experienced shadowrunner. For rules on the other levels of character creation (street level, prime runner), see the Alternate Gameplay Sidebar.
All characters in Shadowrun start with 25 Karma they will use to improve themselves. They’ll get plenty of other resources as they move through the process.
Face: The face runs his fingers over the thrumming strings of other people’s wants and needs, playing them like a maestro. He is master of the con, a polished negotiator, and often an expert leader. Interacting with Mr. Johnson during the meet is his specialty, especially when it comes to bargaining for the greatest profit. The face also excels at legwork, coaxing or squeezing vital information from a variety of sources that could help make sure his job is a success. Though the face usually manages to get what he wants with charm and a smile, he knows how to be more forceful to get people to cough up their secrets. Words are the face’s weapon of choice and Charisma and Willpower are the face’s two important attributes—but he has no problem using an Ares Predator when the situation warrants.
Spellcaster: A manabolt to your chest, a fireball in your face—that’s what the spellcaster brings to the table in combat. And he does so much more. He manipulates and channels mana, an energy field that is the essence of magic. Mana can be manipulated in several different ways, allowing for different types of spellcasters. Magicians follow a more logical and ordered system of magic, while shamans rely more on their instincts and intuition. To make a spellcaster, a player needs to select a priority that grants a Magic attribute rating (see Priority Table, p. 65). Depending on the tradition, Charisma or Intuition can be important attributes for spellcasters, and Willpower is an important attribute for resisting Drain.
Decker: The trickster in the Matrix, the flash of lightning in the corner of your virtual eye—a decker specializes in hacking into computers, commlinks, and datahavens. Her job often involves stealing, altering, and manipulating data as well as taking control of or modifying security systems so her teammates can get in and out of defended facilities. A good decker knows her work may put her right in the middle of heated action, and she knows how to react. Whether she’s firing a weapon, disabling the weapons of others, or sending every electronic device in a place on the attack, she has a whole bunch of options to keep herself involved in unfolding combat. A decker never travels without her cyberdeck (p. 227), the tool of her trade. Logic, Intuition, and Willpower can be important attributes for the decker character.
Technomancer: Some people hack the Matrix with physical tools, but a few have the ability to log on with nothing more than their minds. These people are technomancers. A technomancer can access the Matrix with his mind through an intrinsic connection that’s not fully understood, even in 2075— though plenty of people would pay plenty to figure out how it works. A player who wishes to play a technomancer must select an option on the Priority Table (p. 65) that gives the character a Resonance attribute. Logic, Intuition, and Willpower can be important attributes for the technomancer.
Rigger: Some people drive cars; other people use vehicles as an extension of their body, like an additional set of limbs. A rigger is a professional driver, an ace controller of all sorts of machines. She is highly skilled in the operation, repair, and customization of all sorts of vehicles and/or drones, offering surveillance, transportation, and remote firepower to their team. Reaction is a critical attribute for riggers.
Street Samurai: Some artists work in watercolors, some in oils. The street samurai is an artist of pain. In any given situation, he knows fifteen ways to hurt an opponent, and an additional eight ways to hurt an opponent real bad. He can take significant amounts of damage and stay standing, leveling devastating damage on her opponents. He typically is augmented with significant amounts of cyberware and bioware to make him exceptionally tough and dangerous in physical and armed combat. While he is ferocious and deadly, he tends to have a code—it may be a code comprehensible only to him, but it’s something. Body, Strength, and Agility are important attributes for characters that are street samurai.
In Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, character generation is based on the Priority System. The Priority System is a table with the following columns: Metatype, Attributes, Magic or Resonance, Skills, and Resources. The rows are divided into Priority Levels ranging from Priority A to Priority E. Players assign a specific Priority Level for each of the columns to their character depending on their preferences. The values assigned must be different for each column (representing each aspect of the character), and there can be no duplications. For example, a character may not have Priority Level B for Magic or Resonance and Priority B for Resources. The higher the Priority Level (A, B, etc.), the more valuable it is for the character. Characters use Karma later on to customize their characters even further.
The player begins the character-creation process by choosing their character’s metatype, or race. There are five distinct races within Shadowrun: dwarfs, elves, humans, orks, and trolls. Each race receives different racial advantages (and possibly disadvantages). Humans, for example, receive a higher rating in Edge (+1). Trolls receive Thermographic Vision, +1 Reach, and Dermal Armor, but they also receive the disadvantage of having to pay an additional fifty percent for gear because everything—including cyberware and bioware—must be specially modified to meet their massive physical requirements. Several metatypes also receive physical or mental advantages/disadvantages to their attribute ratings (such as higher or lower natural attribute limits). When determining which metatype best fits the character concept they wish to play, the player should refer to the Metatype Attribute Table (p. 66) and review the specific details for each metatype.
Once the player has selected the metatype they wish to play, they should review the Metatype column to determine which Priority Levels give them the best options for their character based on their preferred metatype and the special attribute points they need. The special attributes are Edge, Magic, and Resonance; if you want your character to have a high rating in one or more of these areas, make sure you select a row with plenty of special attribute points. Technomancer characters need to ensure they can have a high Resonance, while magician or adept characters will want a high Magic rating.
Edge starts at the value for each metatype listed in the Metatype Attribute Table (p. 66). Magic and Resonance start at 0.
Edge, of course, is beneficial to all characters. Special attribute points may be spent entirely on Edge if the player chooses not to play a magic user or a technomancer, or they may split these points as they see fit between their Edge and Magic or Resonance attribute ratings if the player so chooses. These Special Attribute Points may only be allocated on Special Attributes. They may never be used to raise Mental or Physical attributes. Any unspent Special Attribute points disappear following the character creation process. If the player chooses an option that provides 0 special attribute points, don’t worry. Players may elect to spend the Karma given to them during the character creation process to raise these special attributes by following the standard Character Advancement rules (p. 103).
Note that for most metatypes, the maximum rating for Magic, Resonance, and Edge is 6; humans have a maximum Edge rating of 7. Certain qualities (Lucky, Exceptional Attribute) allow characters to exceed attribute maximums by one, but the player must purchase these qualities with Karma and may only do so with gamemaster approval (the player may purchase either Lucky or Exceptional Attribute, but not both). Even if one of these qualities is purchased, the player must still spend the attribute points/Karma to raise the attribute to that new limit. With Exceptional Attribute, you can end up with a maximum Magic or Resonance rating of 7 when starting the game (before initiation or submersion).
The next step is to raise the character’s attributes. The player chooses a Priority Level from the Attribute column that best suits their vision of the character. The number in this column represents the points a player has available for raising their character’s Mental and Physical attributes. When spending attribute points, refer to the Metatype Attribute Table. This table shows the starting attribute ratings for each metatype (the number before the slash) as well as the maximum for each. Characters begin at their metatype’s starting levels at no cost; so humans begin with a Body rating of 1, dwarfs have a starting Body rating of 3, orks have an initial rating of 4, and trolls start at 5. Characters then apply their attribute points to these starting values. It takes 1 attribute point to raise an attribute rating by 1.
A character must spend all attribute points during character creation. They may not spend attribute points from the Attributes column to raise special attributes or for any other purpose. Characters at character creation may only have 1 Mental or Physical attribute at their natural maximum limit; the special attributes of Magic, Edge, and Resonance are not included in this limitation.
A player needs to be careful in building their character, as many of the attributes have a natural limit below the default level of 6 to reflect a metatype’s inherent disadvantage in that particular attribute.
While the player is raising attributes and deciding on starting levels for her character, she should keep in mind several factors that will be calculated at the end of character creation based upon the character’s attributes, namely Initiative and Inherent Limits. Initiative determines the order in which characters, both player characters and non-player characters (NPCs), act in combat (for rules on Initiative, see Initiative, p. 52). The base Initiative rating for a character is Intuition + Reaction.
Inherent limits (see Tests and Limits, p. 46) restrict the number of hits characters can count in certain tests. They are based on attributes, so when choosing attributes, keep these limits in mind. The formulas for inherent limits are found on the Final Calculations Table (p. 101).
Technomancers need to remember that their mental attributes will determine attributes for their Living Persona, their representation in the Matrix (p. 249). For details on the living persona, see p. 250. Similarly, when magicians project themselves into astral space, they have astral attributes (p. 314) that are based on their mental attributes. The choices players make in this section will affect those attributes later.
The next column of the Priority Table is Magic or Resonance. This is a column for players who want to be magic users (adepts, aspected magicians, mages, shamans, and mystic adepts) or technomancers. Players who desire none of these character options choose Priority E for this column. For a quick reference on the variety of magic users available in Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, refer to the Magic User Types sidebar. Additionally, the Life as a Magic User in 2075 and Life as a Technomancer in 2075 sidebars help players know what they’re getting into if they choose these kinds of characters.
Priority Levels A through C in this column specify the character’s starting attribute rating (either Magic or Resonance) along with a number of skills and spells or complex forms for their character as listed in the appropriate box. These are already paid for and can be added to the character sheet right away; they do not cost any skill points or Karma up front, although they can be increased later. The player should select which skills, spells, and complex forms they want for their character at this time. A list of active skills (including those that are Magic- and Resonance- based) can be found on p. 90. Skills are described in detail in the Skills chapter, p. 128. Adepts should review the adept powers (p. 308) to ensure that the skills they choose will support the adept powers they want, such as the Blades skill for the Critical Strike (skill) adept power. Spells listings start on p. 283, while complex forms can be found on p. 252.
Aspected magicians must choose a specific Magic- based skill group (Sorcery, Conjuring, or Enchanting) to be the one area of magic that the character practices. Once an aspected magician take this specific skill group, the character may never take any other skills from the other Magic skill groups, either at character creation or at any future point.
Note that while adepts receive Power Points for free (equal to their Magic rating), mystic adepts do not. Mystic adepts must purchase Power Points using Karma at the cost 2 Karma per full Power Point. The maximum number of Power Points Mystic Adepts may have is equal to their Magic rating. These points would be purchased during Step Seven: Spending Your Left Over Karma (p. 98).
Remember, players are not limited to only what they receive in the priority level. Players may spend Karma to buy more spells or complex forms, register sprites, or bind spirits toward the end of character creation
This next step in the character creation process is finalizing the list of qualities the character will have at the beginning of a Shadowrun campaign.
Qualities help round out your character’s personality while also providing a range of benefits or penalties. There are two types of Qualities—Positive Qualities, which provide gameplay bonuses and require an expenditure of Karma; and Negative Qualities, which impose gameplay penalties but also give bonus Karma the player can spend in other areas.
As mentioned earlier, the character starts the character creation process with 25 Karma, and some of that can be spent to buy Qualities. Players can spend all of it, some of it, or none of it based on what they want their character to have and how much Karma they want to save for later. Additionally, at creation characters can only possess at most 25 Karma worth of Positive Qualities and 25 Karma worth of Negative Qualities.
After character creation, Positive Qualities can be purchased during game play, while Negative Qualities may be awarded to the character by the gamemaster based on events that take place in game. Negative Qualities can be bought off using Karma during game play. See Character Advancement rules (p. 103) for more about purchasing Positive Qualities or buying off Negative ones.
When purchasing a Positive or Negative quality, note the quality on the character sheet along with any bonuses or negative modifiers to skills in parentheses next to the appropriate skills or attributes.
You now have the basic attributes of your character; the next step is to figure out your skills, the areas where you have particular abilities and gifts. This is covered in the fourth column of the Priority Table. Remember that at this point, players should have only two Priority Levels left that have yet to be assigned, so they should choose one of them for this column.
Skills are broken down into three types: Active, Knowledge, and Language skills. Active skills are what the character can do physically: use firearms, drive a car, tell convincing lies, cast spells, register sprites, etc. Knowledge skills are what the character knows: how to find runner hangouts, the layout of the city, short cuts, the locations of street clinics, how to identify street gangs, etc. Language skills are the languages the character can speak, write, and comprehend.
The first number in the skills column is the number of skill points a character has to spend on individual skills. These skill points are generally used to purchase Active skills, though they can be used for Knowledge and Language skills too (see below). If you don’t get exactly the skill ratings you want in this step, remember that skills may also be raised with Karma at the end of character creation. In this step, it only takes one skill priority point to either acquire a new skill or raise a skill rating by 1.
The number in the second column shows how many points characters can use on skill groups. Skill groups contain similar or complimentary skills that a player purchases as a bundle. When a skill group is purchased, the character is considered to have all the individual skills of the skill group at the rating of the group. the character wishes to break up the skill group during game play and raise only one of the skills, he is free to do so, but may not raise those skills as a skill group again until all skills possess the same rating. Skill group points may not be used to purchase individual skills and vice versa. In addition, skill groups cannot be broken up in this step, so individual skill points cannot raise the ratings of skills purchased as a group. (Note that skill groups can be broken up in Step Seven: Spend Your Left Over Karma (p. 98).
In character generation, the highest characters can raise a skill is 6 (7 if they purchase the Aptitude quality). After character generation, the highest rating a skill can hit is 12 (13 with the Aptitude quality).
All skill and skill group points must be spent at the time of character creation. These points cannot be saved or used after the game starts. The player should make sure any individual skills they want to purchase are not duplicated in any skill group they have taken. For example, a player may wish to purchase the Running skill, but if they have already purchased the Athletic skill group, the group includes running—they do not need to purchase the running skill a second time.
Along with skill ranks, players may also want to use their points to purchase specializations. Specializations are parts of a skill in which a character has invested extra time and effort, so they have become extra skilled. For example, if you have the Blades skill, you may specialize in an axe or survival knife. Having a specialization gives you a +2 dice pool bonus to skill tests involving the area of specialization.
At character creation, a specialization costs 1 skill point. No individual skill may have more than one specialization. As a character develops, though, they may gain other areas of expertise (for example, you may complement your axe knowledge with sword expertise) and so add more specializations to the same skills. Along with being purchased in this step, specializations may be purchased using Karma at the end of character creation (see Character Advancement, p. 103).
Specializations cannot be purchased for skill groups. Skill groups reflect a general understanding of similar skills rather than a particular expertise that a specialization denotes. Players may choose to buy a specialization for an individual skill within a skill group, but if they do so the skill group is broken from that point forward, meaning that all skills of the group must be raised separately. Additionally, once a specialization is taken for a skill in the skill group, it is impossible to reconstruct that skill group. This cannot happen in Step Five of character creation— you can only break up a skill group by buying a specialization for it in Step Seven (see p. 98 for details).
Survival on the streets depends on two things (at least): being really good at what you do, and having some backup skills for when things go to hell. If you’re going to be a shooter, stock up on the appropriate gun skills, but maybe add some Perception so you can see your targets coming, some Sneaking to keep them from seeing you, and some First Aid in case you wind up catching a bullet. If you’re a magician, you need plenty of Spellcasting, Counterspelling, and maybe Summoning, but Gymnastics might be a nice addition to help you avoid incoming attacks, and Palming may be useful for slipping a keycard from a guard while you’re invisible. And if you’re a face, you need plenty of social skills, but you’ll be asking for trouble if you don’t buy some combat skills to fall back on for those times when words fail you. Whatever your character concept, you should think of your character’s skills as a whole, building some excellent skills while also providing an overall balance to maximize your chances of success. You won’t have all your skills where you want them at first, but that’s why you play the game—as you finish missions and earn more Karma, you’ll have the chance to boost both your skills and your attributes.
For ease of reference, a master list of skill groups and skills are provided in this section. Full descriptions of skills and their specializations are found in the Skills chapter (p. 128).
There are some skills that cannot be used by all characters. Magic and Resonance-based skills are restricted to characters who have a Magic or Resonance attribute rating. Without the appropriate attribute, the character cannot learn or utilize these skills. These restricted skills are listed under the Magic and Resonance headings in the list of Individual Skills on p. 151.
Additionally, aspected magicians can use only one category of Magic skills (Sorcery, Conjuring, or Enchanting), while magicians and mystic adepts are able to use the whole range of skills. Deckers, even though many of their talents are similar to technomancers while in the Matrix, cannot use Resonance-based skills (namely Compiling, Decompiling, and Registering). For specifics on skill restrictions and whether a character can take a specific skill, refer to the Skills chapter (p. 128).
Characters receive free Knowledge and Language skills points equal to (Intuition rating + Logic rating) x 2. These points are spent in the same way as other skill points, meaning that spending 1 point gives 1 rank in a skill.
In addition to the free points, your character receives one language that he knows as a native language at no cost. On a character sheet, this is designated with an “N” as the skill rating. If your character has taken the Bilingual quality, you may have a second native language, which you also receive for free.
Additional Language skills are purchased and have numerical ratings. This rating represents how well the character understands and comprehends that language. As long as the character has at least a rating of 1, the character has a chance to be able to speak and/or write the language and to interpret the gist of what is said or written, even if they don’t catch every nuance. The higher the rating, the more fluent the character is in that language. At character creation, no character may possess a knowledge or a language skill higher than rating 6. Language skills use Intuition as their linked Attribute.
There are four types of Knowledge skills: Academic, Interests, Professional, and Street. Depending on the category, a character rolls either Knowledge skill + Intuition or Knowledge skill + Logic for the appropriate test. These tests indicate what information the character knows on a particular subject, with more net hits indicating that the character is more familiar with and has more knowledge of the subject in question. Academic knowledge is information gained through formal education, whether from a school, tutor, university, or other structured program. Interests include hobbies, experiences, and personal interests of the individual character. Professional knowledge comes from an employer or professional organization. Street knowledge includes everything a runner has picked up from life in the shadows, from drug prices to gang politics to who pays the most for stolen goods (see the Knowledge Category Examples table (p. 89) for more examples). When purchasing knowledge skills, a player should note which category the skill belongs to so they know which attribute (Intuition or Logic) they will need to roll on their Knowledge Tests. Sometimes, Knowledge skills may straddle multiple categories. In these cases, choose the most appropriate category for the knowledge skill based on the character and how they would use it. For example, a Corporations Knowledge skill could fit in Professional, Academic, or Street categories; a neo-anarchist with this skill would likely be focused on how corporate activities affect life on the street, so for this character it would be a Street skill.
Players should only have one Priority Level left to assign to Resources. This Priority Level determines the amount of money that characters will have to spend on the gear they’ll use to kick some ass, as well as a place to crash when the heat’s off. See Street Gear (p. 421) for available equipment. In this step, you’ll improve your character through spending money; any improvements made with the player’s Karma fund are handled in Step Seven: Spending Your Left Over Karma.
The character needs to spend the vast majority of nuyen they have; by the end of this step, they may choose to hold onto 5,000 nuyen or less and add it to their starting nuyen (p. 95). Any nuyen remaining over 5,000 is lost and cannot be recovered. While nuyen from this step cannot be converted to Karma, players can convert some of their Karma to nuyen if they need a little more to spend. They may convert up to 10 Karma at a rate of 2,000 nuyen per Karma point for gear, which means they can have up to 20,000 extra nuyen.
When a character factors in racial modifiers for gear costs (trolls have a 50 percent gear and Lifestyle cost increase, dwarfs have a 10 percent increase in gear costs), the player may choose to increase the cost for each item picked up at that time to help them track how much they’ve spent and how much nuyen they have left. Alternately, they may choose to purchase all the gear at the base cost, arrive at a subtotal, and then add in the appropriate cost modifier (10 or 50 percent) to get the final total.
Keep in mind there are three restrictions when it comes to purchasing gear. First, when purchasing augmentations such as cyberware and bioware, each attribute rating (Mental and Physical) can only receive an augmentation bonus of up to +4. If the attribute being raised has not reached its natural maximum limit, the attribute can be raised naturally with Karma; but at no point can augmentations exceed the +4 bonus cap. The second restriction is that at normal character creation, characters are restricted to a maximum Availability rating of 12 and a device rating of 6. After character creation, characters may be able to acquire gear that has a higher Availability (p. 416) and a higher device rating. Finally, all gear is subject to gamemaster approval, even if the gear falls within these restrictions.
The most common augmentations players take to enhance their characters’ attributes are cyberware and bioware (p. 451). Cyberware is technology implanted into a metahuman body, either to enhance the performance of existing organs, muscles, and systems, or to replace a part of the metahuman body completely with an artificial form that exceeds normal human limitations. Bioware, by contrast, is living technology; cells grown in laboratories and designed to work within a metahuman’s body to improve on its natural design, and to add options nature never intended. Cyberware generally consumes more of a character’s Essence than bioware. The drawback for bioware is its greater expense.
Note that if a character takes cyberware or bioware, it may remove a particular racial bonus. For example, if a player who has an elf character buys cybereyes, their natural low-light vision is removed and replaced with the cybereyes and whatever attributes it possesses. If the player still wants low-light vision, she’ll have to select the low-light modification for the cybereyes. Similarly, orthoskin replaces the natural dermal deposits of a troll so he would no longer receive the +1 dermal armor from his natural skin hardness.
There are four grades of available cyberware and bioware: standard, alphaware, betaware, and deltaware (p. 451). Only standard gear and alphaware are available at character creation.
Cyberware and bioware augmentations are not for everyone. The physiologies for magic users and technomancers respond poorly to the loss of Essence that accompanies these augmentations. In game terms, this means that any fraction of Essence loss reduces a Magic or Resonance attribute rating by 1. This means that if a magician with Magic 5 decides to buy and install some cybereyes (Rating 4), their Essence will go from 6 to 5.5 due to the Essence cost of the cybereyes, and the magician will also lose a full point of Magic, leaving them with a Magic attribute rating of 4. The character can then lose another half a point of Essence, taking him down to 5.0, without a penalty to Magic, but if he drops below 5.0, his Magic rating is going to lose another point.
This is why so few magic users or technomancers make use of either cyberware or bioware. Those who do can find their talents burned out if too many augmentations reduce their Magic or Resonance rating to 0. For more information, see Magic Loss (p. 278) or Resonance Loss (p. 249).
Attributes boosted by cyberware or bioware do not affect the calculation for things such as points for Knowledge skills or Contacts. However, other in-game mechanics such as Initiative and Inherent Limits are modified by these augmentations, which means these bonuses need to be factored in during Step Eight: Final Numbers (p. 100). When calculating the Social limit using Essence, round your remaining Essence up to the nearest whole number before calculating the limit.
Augmentations need to be noted on the character sheet. The rating should be added to the natural attribute rating and the total written in parentheses next to the natural attribute rating to indicate the permanent augmented rating. For example, a character with a natural Strength rating of 4 and muscle augmentation 2 bioware should record their attribute as follows: Strength 4 (6).
Lifestyle determines how the character lives and their monthly expenses so that they can survive. Is the character a squatter in an abandoned building? Does he survive by dumpster diving? Does the character live in a rundown apartment? Or has the character found a way to own her own home? Depending on the answers to these questions, the character may have a Street, Squatter, Low, Middle, High, or Luxury lifestyle. More information on lifestyles can be found on p. 373.
No more than 5,000 nuyen (or less) of any unspent money from the funds available for character creation carries over to game play. The rest of the character’s starting nuyen is determined by the lifestyle the player has purchased for his character and the formula for that lifestyle specified by the Starting Nuyen Table. The player rolls the designated number of dice, then applies the modifier appropriate to their character’s Lifestyle. The result is added to any funds the player has left over after buying gear.
This step is the player’s last opportunity to polish her character before making the final calculations. By this time the player should have a pretty good idea of her character’s backstory and what she wants her character to look like. Any remaining Karma can now be invested in smoothing out any rough edges, picking up or improving skills, buying additional spells, acquiring bound spirits, bonding foci to be used at the start of the game, purchasing contacts, etc. Refer to the Additional Purchases and Restrictions table to note any special restrictions on purchasing items with Karma. If a player wishes to keep some Karma for use later in the game, she may do so, though the maximum carryover is 7 Karma. When raising skills and attributes, keep in mind the various restrictions of character creation:
Only one attribute can be at the natural attribute limit, and gear is restricted to items with Device Ratings of 6 or less or an Availability of 12 or less. These rules still apply to when you are spending Karma.
When spending Karma for attributes or skills, refer to the rules for improving the character in the Character Advancement section (p. 103).
Contacts are a vital part of a shadowrunner’s life. Contacts sell illegal or hard-to-obtain items, alert runners to potential employment, know someone who knows someone who knows something the runner wants to know, or are knowledgeable about the layout of a heavily guarded corporate compound. Some contacts can supply substances runners are addicted too, fence stolen goods, and maybe, if they’re loyal enough, bail the shadowrunner out of the Lone Star holding cell. Having a wide variety of Contacts can be a valuable investment. Every character receives free Karma to spend on their initial contacts. This Karma is equal to a Character’s Charisma rating x 3.
Each Contact has a Connection and a Loyalty rating. Any Contacts a player buys must have a minimum rating of 1 in Connection and a minimum rating of 1 in Loyalty. Connection represents how much reach and influence a Contact has, both within the shadows and in the world at large, to get things done or to make things happen. Loyalty reflects how loyal the contact is to the runner and how much they’ll endure without shattering whatever bond the two have. At Loyalty 1 or 2, the Contact has only a business relationship with the character. Any qualms they have about turning the runner in are tied to profits they may lose if the runner isn’t around, not so much because of any close personal feelings. With a higher Loyalty rating, the Contact has a stronger and more personal relationship (i.e., friendship) with the character, and is more likely to take some risk or go out of his way to help the character. For specific rules on the use of Contacts, see p. 386.
At this point, characters are basically done, though there are several derived mechanics that must be calculated before they are ready to be played. Since many of these are adjusted by augmentations, it is best to wait until all decisions have been made on skills and attributes before making these calculations.
As explained previously, Initiative determines the order that characters act in combat situations. Initiative is also rolled to determine whether a character is surprised in a combat situation. This pool is determined by adding Intuition + Reaction. Both non-augmented and augmented attributes should be added together and listed the same as attributes, with the non-augmented number first followed by the augmented number in parentheses. Also be sure to note the number of Initiative Dice the character gets; all characters start with 1 (noted as 1D6) and can receive additional dice from augmentations. These should be listed after the Initiative Rating so the listing looks like this: 9 (11) + 2D6.
There is also Matrix Initiative for those that are in the Matrix, and Astral Initiative for magic users and spirits in astral space. Matrix Initiative is determined by whether a character is in cold-sim or hot-sim. For details see Astral Initiative (p. 229) or Matrix Initiative (p. 313).
Inherent limits are limits imposed on a character by their physiological or psychological makeup; all characters have them. See Tests and Limits (p. 46) for more information. The formulas for these inherent limits are given in the Final Calculations table. When calculating all Inherent limits, round the result up to the nearest whole number. For Social limits, round up Essence to the nearest whole number prior to calculating the cost. Every character has a Condition Monitor that tells the player how much Physical and Stun damage they can take before falling unconscious. The formulae for these are found in the Final Calculations table. For more information on using the Condition Monitor, see Damage, p. 169.
Technomancers possess what is called a Living Persona in the Matrix. This Living Persona has specific attributes that are used instead of their normal physical or mental attributes. Information on the Living Persona can be found on p. 250.
Even though the stats are done and the character sheet is filled out, you’re not quite finished. You still need to get the gamemaster approval before play begins. Hopefully, the gamemaster has been actively involved in this process, guiding character creation to help ensure the campaign is both fun and satisfying. If the gamemaster was not involved in the character creation process, players may need to make revisions to their characters that will allow them to get the most out of the of campaign the gamemaster envisions running. For a successful game, all parties should be willing to be flexible and make adjustments that will work for everyone while playing and enjoying Shadowrun (for more advice on working as a group with the gamemaster, see the Gamemaster Advice chapter, p. 332).
In the final stage you should also flesh out the backstory for the character. Qualities, attribute ratings, and contacts provide a blueprint of who these characters are now. But what are their stories? Why are they shadowrunners? What aliases are they known by? How did they earn their street names? Their scars? What are their real names? Who are their friends? Their enemies? How old are they? If a character possesses a piece of gear that they cannot use right now, what is the story behind that? If they have cyberlimbs, was that by choice or out of necessity? The more interesting the background, the more possibilities for interesting role-playing scenarios that can add flavor and diversity to a game.
To make sure your character is ready to rock with a minimum of complication and hassle, here’s a checklist of things to remember when designing a shadowrunner.
Shadowrun provides players with two alternate ways of building characters besides the normal experienced players. The first is for street-level characters; characters that have not yet had a chance to establish themselves as runners and are still in the process of earning their street cred. Obviously, these characters will not have the same gear or resources as the experienced shadowrunner. The second option is the prime runner build to create a character who has successfully been running the shadows long enough to have established their reputations as professionals in the eyes of Mr. Johnson. They possess the gear, the connections, and the talent to back up those reputations. The following are the rules for each level of alternate game play: