Shadowrun on Sega Genesis: Skills, Attributes, and Building a Runner Who Can Actually Do the Job

Shadowrun on Sega Genesis: Skills, Attributes, and Building a Runner Who Can Actually Do the Job The Genesis version of Shadowrun is one of my favorite games ever made. A huge part of that is how much there is to work with. Your character, your equipment, your contacts, the people you bring along, and the jobs you choose all feed into each other. The character sheet looks straightforward enough, but there are a few things worth understanding before you start throwing Karma at everything. You do not need every runner to be good at every job. You need the right people to be good at the things you actually ask them to do. Spend Karma at a hotel Karma is what you spend to improve characters. Money buys equipment, services, and implants; Karma improves attributes and skills. Repeatable jobs are an important source of both, which is why the side work matters so much. Attribute increases cost the new rating. Going from 3 to 4 costs 4 Karma. Most skills cost twice the new rating, so going from 3 to 4 costs 8. The three gun specializations have their own cheaper progression. Check the displayed price rather than applying the ordinary skill cost to them. For human Joshua, the six normal attributes have natural caps of 6. Hired metahuman runners have different racial limits. Most skills top out at 12, with the gun specialties requiring separate consideration because of how they interact with Firearms. Essence and Magic are not ordinary attributes you can keep buying upward with Karma. Attribute and skill reference: https://t.co/g3X9ZF9wNL The six attributes you can develop Body Body helps resist damage, including physical attacks and dangerous Black IC. It belongs near the top of the list for anyone who keeps getting knocked out. There is one catch before you push it all the way up: if you intend to install Dermal Plating, read the cyberware guide first. The game has a documented issue with installing stat-boosting cyberware after the affected natural attribute is already at its cap. Decide on the implant before finishing the attribute. Quickness Quickness affects movement and attack speed, along with combat and cybercombat performance. It helps the character act more effectively rather than simply adding a larger damage number to a weapon. This matters for almost everybody. Faster attacks help a gunfighter, and the movement benefit is useful when you need to get somewhere without turning the entire street into a fight. Strength Strength matters for melee damage and grenade accuracy. A runner built around close combat gets more out of it than one who spends every fight firing a pistol from a distance. Do not assume the biggest possible Strength rating is automatically the best next purchase for a gunfighter. Buy it because it supports your actual weapon choice. Charisma Charisma affects hiring prices and fast-talking. It is particularly useful when someone questions you inside a corporate building and you would rather keep moving than start an alarm. Pay attention to who you are controlling. This is not a reason to give every companion identical social stats. Joshua is usually the person doing the talking, so he is usually where those points make the most sense. Intelligence Intelligence contributes to attack speed and success in combat and cybercombat. It has uses outside the obvious decker role. If your character is competent with a weapon but still feels sluggish, the answer is not necessarily another weapon-skill level. Attributes and implants also affect how that character performs. Willpower Willpower resists mana effects and magical drain, and contributes to combat success. It is especially important for a spellcaster who needs to keep casting without being worn down by drain. For a non-caster, weigh it against the more immediate problem. If you cannot survive a gunfight, Body and appropriate armor deserve attention. If your shaman is struggling with drain, Willpower becomes much harder to put off. Essence and Magic are different Essence is consumed by cyberware. It is permanent, and there is no normal Karma purchase that restores what you spent. For a magic user, reduced Essence lowers Magic. That in turn restricts the Force of spells the character can cast. A non-magical character does not become a spellcaster by raising an ordinary attribute or collecting spare Karma. This is why I would treat cyberware as a separate build decision rather than just another shopping trip. It is a much bigger tradeoff for a shaman than for a street samurai. All twelve skills Sorcery Sorcery is for spellcasting. Develop it on your magic user, alongside the attributes that support casting and drain resistance. Non-magical characters do not have a normal route to turn themselves into mages by buying this skill. A spellcaster also needs the actual spells. Raising Sorcery does not fill the spell list for you. Firearms Firearms covers all gun categories. Its interaction with Pistols, SMGs, and Shotguns is the part to understand before spending. The game uses Firearms in place of a lower specialization. It does not simply add the two ratings together. If Firearms is 6 and Pistols is 2, the low Pistols number does not reduce you to a terrible pistol user, and it does not give you an effective rating of 8. There is also a useful training behavior: a gun specialization still at zero can jump directly beyond your Firearms rating when you first improve it. A nonzero specialization does not get that same jump. That is a good reason not to buy one token point in every category just to fill the sheet. Pistols Pistols covers both light and heavy pistols. It is a good specialization if that is the weapon family you intend to keep using. A strong pistol with suitable accessories can remain useful well beyond the opening streets. You do not have to abandon the category just because another weapon looks bigger. SMGs SMGs is the equivalent specialty for submachine guns. Develop it if your runner actually uses one. Otherwise, let the broad Firearms rating cover occasional use. For corporate work, remember the sound suppressor. Skill does not make an unsuppressed gun quiet. Shotguns Shotguns covers the shotgun family. This is a weapon commitment, not an extra damage stat for every gun in the inventory. Think about the jobs you want to do before specializing. A weapon suited to a straight fight is not necessarily the most convenient thing to fire inside a building where you are trying to avoid alarms. Melee Combat Melee Combat governs hand-to-hand success. Pair it with Strength and consider the role of Hand Razors or Spurs if you want a cybered close-combat character. The risk is the approach. A melee character needs to reach the target and survive being there. Giving someone a high skill without the defenses to stay in the fight leaves half the build unfinished. Throwing Throwing improves grenade use. The problem is that a better rating does not remove the need to place the explosion safely. Be particularly careful around hired runners, escort clients, and extraction targets. A weapon that creates an avoidable risk to the person you are being paid to protect is not automatically a good choice just because it can hit several enemies. Computer Computer supports Matrix operations and cybercombat. It belongs on whoever is actually doing your decking. That person still needs a Datajack, a usable cyberdeck, and suitable programs. A high skill is not a replacement for a badly underpowered deck. Conversely, an expensive deck does not make the operator's abilities irrelevant. You can develop Joshua as a decker or hire someone for that role. Either works; spending heavily on Computer for three people who never enter the Matrix does not. Biotech Biotech improves Medkit use. If the group relies on medical supplies rather than magical healing, this is worth developing on the person using the kit. Decide who is handling recovery, carry the supplies, and remember to use that person. A support skill does nothing for you if it sits on a runner you never select when performing the action. Electronics Electronics helps with maglocks and corporate security terminals. It is different from Computer. This is one of the most useful skills for physical corporate runs. A strong passkey helps with doors, but it does not replace every reason to use Electronics. Security terminals can help with alarms and information about your objective. If you are moving from street work into acquisitions and extractions, this is a skill to build before going in. Six is a reasonable practical target for ordinary corporate work, not a guarantee that every check becomes automatic. Reputation Reputation affects how people deal with you, including access and some costs. It is not a damage stat, and it does not need to be your first priority just because the name sounds important. Develop it when an access requirement or recurring expense makes it useful. Joshua is the sensible place to concentrate attention rather than treating every hired runner as a second main character. Negotiation Negotiation affects contract payments and many buying and selling prices. Its value becomes much more obvious when you start purchasing expensive decks, programs, and cyberware. It is easy to underestimate a discount while buying cheap supplies. That same skill can matter a lot when the next purchase costs tens of thousands. Improve it before a major shopping trip when you can, and compare the actual quote. Not every transaction in the game follows one universal discount rule. Complete skill descriptions and interactions: https://t.co/g3X9ZF9wNL Three ways to put it together Street samurai: Build dependable combat, Body, Quickness, and Intelligence. Choose a main weapon approach. Plan implants before maxing the attributes those implants affect. Add enough practical support to do the jobs you want rather than trying to become a full decker, healer, and mage simultaneously. Decker: Put real resources into Computer and the deck itself, but do not forget the physical world. You still need to get through Seattle and survive outside the Matrix. A teammate can cover another role while you build your main one. Shaman: Develop Sorcery and the casting-related attributes, preserve Essence unless you deliberately accept the tradeoff, and buy useful spells. Keep a backup way to contribute when casting is not the best answer. The best part is that the starting archetype does not dictate every ordinary skill purchase for the rest of the game. You have room to adjust. Just keep track of what the character is actually supposed to do. Before spending the next batch Ask four things: Am I losing because I miss, because I cannot hurt the enemy, because I cannot survive, or because I cannot get through the security? Those are different problems. Buy the skill or attribute that addresses the problem. Then go do another run and see what the group needs next. That freedom to build a runner around the work is a huge part of why this game has stayed with me for so long.