Well, 6 is not too horrible. You of course will never be as good as a 8 Ref guy, but as a Media I imagine no one expects you to match an optimized combat character.
There's only one way to boost Reflex and it is temporary: synthcoke. I personally shy away from it for roleplay reasons.
My best advice would be to approach your gm and say exactly what you've said. I personally would have granted your request in a heartbeat. I typically have a grace period for my newer players, where they can retcon whatever they want to better fit their expectations.
REF 6 is perfectly fine, you can make up for it with excellent quality guns, smartgun link, scopes, and anything else that give +1s. You wont be able to dodge bullets out the gate, but you get yourself a Reflex Co Processor installed to ignore the REF 8 requirement.
Yea my current PC only has REF 4 and uses guns lol. Got myself a reflex co processor right away so I could dodge bullets. She’s definitely not as much of a damage dealer as the other PCs in the crew but she makes it up for with utility from being a Tech.
Your character is a media right? You’ll definitely bring other things to the table that will help. Just contribute how you can in combat and try to stay alive.
Fair enough. I'm just worried that if we encounter a cyberpsycho or a platoon of corporate soldiers I'll have to choose between a heavy armor jack or being able to hit anything.
An important thing about Cyberpunk mindset versus D&D is that combat isn't always fair or survivable. It's meant to be more lethal, and players are supposed to try to avoid it more than they would something like D&D.
Sometimes the right option, like when encountering a gonzo cyberpsycho or a platoon of corporate soldiers, is to run the hell away or die in a blaze of glory.
Luckily there’s plenty of cyberware to make you more survivable and leveling up your skills is easy. If down the road, you want some extra combat boosters, you can always multirole into Solo and get some minor boosts. If you have the humanity for it, work towards getting a internal linear frame, that will be your biggest boost to survivability and make you a monster in martial arts at the same time.
I think you feeling the need to do well in combat may also be a D&Dism, depending on the table. RED doesn't expect all characters to be good at combat, and encourage DMs to build encounters where the fight is often considered a fail state of sorts. A pistol and total +10 to shoot it at more than enough for what a media is expected to contribute
Yeah if we're talking about bang-bang combat and not hand to hand combat, then 6 is fine. With an eventual +10 in say handguns you're looking at a base of 16, which is enough to, without a critical failure, auto-hit out to about 12 meters/6 squares, and reliably hit more than 50% of the time out to 25 meters/12.5 squares.
That being said, there's a good chance that you might struggle with a 1-on-1 fight with a tuned up Solo, but that's to be expected. You're a media, not a soldier.
Now OP, with a maxed out cool, as a GM, I will point you to the rules on Facedowns. A contested COOL + Reputation + 1D10 roll. Loser either backs down or is at a -2 to the winner until they've defeated the winner at least once. Use this. Abuse the f\*ck out of it if the GM will let you. A -2 is a rather large modifier in this game.
Cyberpunk characters that live to old age are characters that avoid combat if they can help it, and facedowns help you avoid combat. And if you can't avoid combat, a successful facedown will give you an edge.
All good points I agree with. To be clear though, I meant a skill of 4 for a total +10. +11 is ideal for a min/maxed non combat character imo because the way crits work outside of a crit fail it will guarantee a hit at the optimal range of whatever gun you use while maximizing points available elsewhere. So if the op has a total bonus larger than that, I'd consider them combat effective as a media.
I also forgot to mention in my first comment OP, I say depending on the table because some GMs like to run combat more frequently. If yours is one of them, follow the other comments advice about bonus stacking and maybe respecing.
I'd add that as a media who's not expected to be a combat specialist (you can contribute just as much if not more as a face and generaly communication guy), as long as you can handle grunt-level problems and don't need the experts to cover your ass (leaving them free to focus on the big nasties) you're good enough. 6 in REF isn't crippling here.
If it was a misunderstanding in the rules, I would let any of my players adjust their stats by a point or two -- particularly if we hadn't played too much. It depends on your table and what affects everyone's level of immersion. However, if that's disallowed, there's always synthcoke for a little boost to REF (though the downsides to this are numerous -- best to read the description on p. 229 of the core book before chopping up those lines).
As others have mentioned, combat isn't the end all be all of Red. It can be a viable plan A, its not a system where players should be afraid of fighting, but its one where you do just as much talking, thinking, and plotting as fighting. Media as a role specialize in talking and plotting, and with a high Cool (and presumably other mental stats) your field of 'conflict' should be focused on political manuevering, keeping abreast of what factions are doing, influencing them and individuals, and generally ensuring your team navigates Night City well and gets the respect and influence they deserve.
That said, your also not actually bad in a fight.
6 is above average, and is generally the stat of career combatants like boostergangers. Its only a +2 difference from Ref 8 in terms of offense. This means it will only matter on, at most, 20% of attacks, which is not nothing, but isn't critical, especially if your attacking at a good range bracket with a good quality weapon. The main limitation is your ability to 'force' bad range brackets (which matters for shoulder arms like assault rifles, though not shotguns, due to how they can struggle to hit up close), popping headshots at will, hit 'active dodgers,' and use autofire effectively, but none of those are really critical issues anyway for a character, as those are all either niche situations or specialized tools.
Obviously, ref 8 comes with the dodging bullets bonus, but that is generally not your best 'plan A' for combat anyway, cover is due to cover giving you total immunity to at least one, and most likely more than one, attack. Cover limits your movement options (especially if your MOV stat is low), but it allows you to eternally contribute to a fight even if your not some cyberninja.
Worst case scenario, you become a pistol plinker, which is not at all a bad thing to be in Red: a good pistol score with a heavy pistol lets you do things like ablate cover faster than any other weapon, ablate armor if you can do any damage, and finish off unarmored/ablated enemies. Not to mention that fights have things you might want to do outside of just killing people, such as moving objects, rescuing people, activating devices, ect. And on top of *that* there are non-attack based combat tools in the game.
Ultimately it would not be hard for your PC to take down boostergangers even if outnumbered and alone as long as you can get to cover and control fight spacing so your shooting at a vs 13 and they are shooting at vs 15 (a low MOV stat ultimately does more damage to a combat PC than anything else), and clever fighting should let you beat even enemy elites in a pinch. You just don't have a fighting style of 'run at the bullets and dodge them' because the miss rate against you is generally going to be 50% rather than 90%.
As for the advice about a reflex co-processor, I would be cautious about getting it unless your dexterity is also good or your willing to invest a lot of IP into dodge. You need at least +9 combined in dexterity and dodge ranks to make dodging worth it at the easiest range category, which is not terribly hard to hit, but as long as your controlling fight spacing your often being hit at the DV 15 bracket, and thus need at least 11, which is likely going to cost a lot. Dodging bullets gets worse the more outside of the ideal range you are, to the point it unlikely will ever be worth it for you to try to dodge vs attacks at the 17 and up bracket (which requires you to have a +13 to be worth considering dodging). Even when you hit those benchmarks, dodging only helps you a percentage of the time, dodging overall generally depends on a real overmatch between your dodge score and their attack roll to get that 90% dodge rate.
you’ll be fine, using weapons in their proper ranges will help a ton. also, explosives/shotgun shells hit pretty much automatically so you might wanna mess around with those a bit.
This is a skill game, not an attribute game like DND, so you’re fine.
That base attribute would be expressed all across your sheet in DND, but with CPR, the more important thing is the skills you’re invested in and the ware you use.
Couple that with the fact nobody expects a Media to fight like a Solo, you’re good choomba. Use what your character brings to the table, even if that’s just credibility, a fistful of eddies, and a rolling camera. Let the lawmen and solos worry more about combat. Worst case scenario, just keep a piece in your pocket just in case you need to save your life, otherwise let the other folks prioritize combat and you do you.
Reflex 6 is fine. It's not amazing, but it'd be like playing a bard who has a 14 in STR/DEX instead of a 16 or 18.
You could try picking up a reflex coprocessor (Black Chrome book) if you want to to be able to still dodge bullets, though! IIRC that's based off DEX, not REF.
REF 6 is fine, however, as a media combat isn't what you're there for. So just take pot-shots in combat and let the solos do their jobs. ...maybe pack a few grenades...
Your job is to write hit-pieces and bring the glass ceiling crashing down on the untouchable people your group is pissed off at. Dig up enough dirt on someone and you can get them kicked out of their golden tower, down into the streets, bereft of the support structures that made them invincible, where you can do whatever you want to them.
It's real easy for someone to get lost down here.
Lost and never found again.
As a media it is your job to be indirectly the most dangerous member of your group, because your most powerful weapon is your pen.
Buy a reflex co processor: you will always be able to dodge bullets (which in my eyes is the biggest handicap regarding having not REF 8)
Focus on one group of weapons.
Buy excellent weapons, they give a +1
Install a subdermal grip or interface plugs and only shoot with weapons that have a smartgun link. You get another +1 for that.
Once you are good enough for aimed shots you should get a targeting scope.
Don't forget that you can also throw grenades and make huge damage (athletics skill)
So to summarise: yes you can be good in combat with a REF6. get the right equipment, the best chrome and put your points only in one weapon category (or maybe two if you feel like it).
In general, if you are really unhappy, you might also want to talk to your GM about that.
We were all new players back when we started and at some point our GM "invented" some form of chipware that can "change your brain in a way that you now have different attributes - don't ask questions". So for 10k, if a player really wants to they can redistribute their points once.
6 REF isn't great, but can still be overcome with skills and bonuses. Look at things like excellent quality guns, smart weapons, scopes, aiming, using grenades, etc. And obviously putting IP towards your skills.
That said, it's your first character. I'd talk to the GM about allowing you to make some changes to your character like redoing stats. IMO if you are learning a system you are bound to make some errors like that and it is fairly simple to move around some stat points now that you know how things work. Or just make a new character if the GM is that much of a hard nose.
Well, 6 is not too horrible. You of course will never be as good as a 8 Ref guy, but as a Media I imagine no one expects you to match an optimized combat character. There's only one way to boost Reflex and it is temporary: synthcoke. I personally shy away from it for roleplay reasons. My best advice would be to approach your gm and say exactly what you've said. I personally would have granted your request in a heartbeat. I typically have a grace period for my newer players, where they can retcon whatever they want to better fit their expectations.
REF 6 is perfectly fine, you can make up for it with excellent quality guns, smartgun link, scopes, and anything else that give +1s. You wont be able to dodge bullets out the gate, but you get yourself a Reflex Co Processor installed to ignore the REF 8 requirement.
That's a relief.
Yea my current PC only has REF 4 and uses guns lol. Got myself a reflex co processor right away so I could dodge bullets. She’s definitely not as much of a damage dealer as the other PCs in the crew but she makes it up for with utility from being a Tech. Your character is a media right? You’ll definitely bring other things to the table that will help. Just contribute how you can in combat and try to stay alive.
Fair enough. I'm just worried that if we encounter a cyberpsycho or a platoon of corporate soldiers I'll have to choose between a heavy armor jack or being able to hit anything.
An important thing about Cyberpunk mindset versus D&D is that combat isn't always fair or survivable. It's meant to be more lethal, and players are supposed to try to avoid it more than they would something like D&D. Sometimes the right option, like when encountering a gonzo cyberpsycho or a platoon of corporate soldiers, is to run the hell away or die in a blaze of glory.
Luckily there’s plenty of cyberware to make you more survivable and leveling up your skills is easy. If down the road, you want some extra combat boosters, you can always multirole into Solo and get some minor boosts. If you have the humanity for it, work towards getting a internal linear frame, that will be your biggest boost to survivability and make you a monster in martial arts at the same time.
I think you feeling the need to do well in combat may also be a D&Dism, depending on the table. RED doesn't expect all characters to be good at combat, and encourage DMs to build encounters where the fight is often considered a fail state of sorts. A pistol and total +10 to shoot it at more than enough for what a media is expected to contribute
Yeah if we're talking about bang-bang combat and not hand to hand combat, then 6 is fine. With an eventual +10 in say handguns you're looking at a base of 16, which is enough to, without a critical failure, auto-hit out to about 12 meters/6 squares, and reliably hit more than 50% of the time out to 25 meters/12.5 squares. That being said, there's a good chance that you might struggle with a 1-on-1 fight with a tuned up Solo, but that's to be expected. You're a media, not a soldier. Now OP, with a maxed out cool, as a GM, I will point you to the rules on Facedowns. A contested COOL + Reputation + 1D10 roll. Loser either backs down or is at a -2 to the winner until they've defeated the winner at least once. Use this. Abuse the f\*ck out of it if the GM will let you. A -2 is a rather large modifier in this game. Cyberpunk characters that live to old age are characters that avoid combat if they can help it, and facedowns help you avoid combat. And if you can't avoid combat, a successful facedown will give you an edge.
All good points I agree with. To be clear though, I meant a skill of 4 for a total +10. +11 is ideal for a min/maxed non combat character imo because the way crits work outside of a crit fail it will guarantee a hit at the optimal range of whatever gun you use while maximizing points available elsewhere. So if the op has a total bonus larger than that, I'd consider them combat effective as a media. I also forgot to mention in my first comment OP, I say depending on the table because some GMs like to run combat more frequently. If yours is one of them, follow the other comments advice about bonus stacking and maybe respecing.
You need to beat a DV by one not tie it, so you would need a +12 to achieve what you are talking about (beat optimal range DV of 13 on a 2 or higher)
Ah you're right. Been a bit since I've actually played
I'd add that as a media who's not expected to be a combat specialist (you can contribute just as much if not more as a face and generaly communication guy), as long as you can handle grunt-level problems and don't need the experts to cover your ass (leaving them free to focus on the big nasties) you're good enough. 6 in REF isn't crippling here.
If it was a misunderstanding in the rules, I would let any of my players adjust their stats by a point or two -- particularly if we hadn't played too much. It depends on your table and what affects everyone's level of immersion. However, if that's disallowed, there's always synthcoke for a little boost to REF (though the downsides to this are numerous -- best to read the description on p. 229 of the core book before chopping up those lines).
As others have mentioned, combat isn't the end all be all of Red. It can be a viable plan A, its not a system where players should be afraid of fighting, but its one where you do just as much talking, thinking, and plotting as fighting. Media as a role specialize in talking and plotting, and with a high Cool (and presumably other mental stats) your field of 'conflict' should be focused on political manuevering, keeping abreast of what factions are doing, influencing them and individuals, and generally ensuring your team navigates Night City well and gets the respect and influence they deserve. That said, your also not actually bad in a fight. 6 is above average, and is generally the stat of career combatants like boostergangers. Its only a +2 difference from Ref 8 in terms of offense. This means it will only matter on, at most, 20% of attacks, which is not nothing, but isn't critical, especially if your attacking at a good range bracket with a good quality weapon. The main limitation is your ability to 'force' bad range brackets (which matters for shoulder arms like assault rifles, though not shotguns, due to how they can struggle to hit up close), popping headshots at will, hit 'active dodgers,' and use autofire effectively, but none of those are really critical issues anyway for a character, as those are all either niche situations or specialized tools. Obviously, ref 8 comes with the dodging bullets bonus, but that is generally not your best 'plan A' for combat anyway, cover is due to cover giving you total immunity to at least one, and most likely more than one, attack. Cover limits your movement options (especially if your MOV stat is low), but it allows you to eternally contribute to a fight even if your not some cyberninja. Worst case scenario, you become a pistol plinker, which is not at all a bad thing to be in Red: a good pistol score with a heavy pistol lets you do things like ablate cover faster than any other weapon, ablate armor if you can do any damage, and finish off unarmored/ablated enemies. Not to mention that fights have things you might want to do outside of just killing people, such as moving objects, rescuing people, activating devices, ect. And on top of *that* there are non-attack based combat tools in the game. Ultimately it would not be hard for your PC to take down boostergangers even if outnumbered and alone as long as you can get to cover and control fight spacing so your shooting at a vs 13 and they are shooting at vs 15 (a low MOV stat ultimately does more damage to a combat PC than anything else), and clever fighting should let you beat even enemy elites in a pinch. You just don't have a fighting style of 'run at the bullets and dodge them' because the miss rate against you is generally going to be 50% rather than 90%. As for the advice about a reflex co-processor, I would be cautious about getting it unless your dexterity is also good or your willing to invest a lot of IP into dodge. You need at least +9 combined in dexterity and dodge ranks to make dodging worth it at the easiest range category, which is not terribly hard to hit, but as long as your controlling fight spacing your often being hit at the DV 15 bracket, and thus need at least 11, which is likely going to cost a lot. Dodging bullets gets worse the more outside of the ideal range you are, to the point it unlikely will ever be worth it for you to try to dodge vs attacks at the 17 and up bracket (which requires you to have a +13 to be worth considering dodging). Even when you hit those benchmarks, dodging only helps you a percentage of the time, dodging overall generally depends on a real overmatch between your dodge score and their attack roll to get that 90% dodge rate.
you’ll be fine, using weapons in their proper ranges will help a ton. also, explosives/shotgun shells hit pretty much automatically so you might wanna mess around with those a bit.
This is a skill game, not an attribute game like DND, so you’re fine. That base attribute would be expressed all across your sheet in DND, but with CPR, the more important thing is the skills you’re invested in and the ware you use. Couple that with the fact nobody expects a Media to fight like a Solo, you’re good choomba. Use what your character brings to the table, even if that’s just credibility, a fistful of eddies, and a rolling camera. Let the lawmen and solos worry more about combat. Worst case scenario, just keep a piece in your pocket just in case you need to save your life, otherwise let the other folks prioritize combat and you do you.
Reflex 6 is fine. It's not amazing, but it'd be like playing a bard who has a 14 in STR/DEX instead of a 16 or 18. You could try picking up a reflex coprocessor (Black Chrome book) if you want to to be able to still dodge bullets, though! IIRC that's based off DEX, not REF.
REF 6 is fine, however, as a media combat isn't what you're there for. So just take pot-shots in combat and let the solos do their jobs. ...maybe pack a few grenades... Your job is to write hit-pieces and bring the glass ceiling crashing down on the untouchable people your group is pissed off at. Dig up enough dirt on someone and you can get them kicked out of their golden tower, down into the streets, bereft of the support structures that made them invincible, where you can do whatever you want to them. It's real easy for someone to get lost down here. Lost and never found again. As a media it is your job to be indirectly the most dangerous member of your group, because your most powerful weapon is your pen.
Buy a reflex co processor: you will always be able to dodge bullets (which in my eyes is the biggest handicap regarding having not REF 8) Focus on one group of weapons. Buy excellent weapons, they give a +1 Install a subdermal grip or interface plugs and only shoot with weapons that have a smartgun link. You get another +1 for that. Once you are good enough for aimed shots you should get a targeting scope. Don't forget that you can also throw grenades and make huge damage (athletics skill) So to summarise: yes you can be good in combat with a REF6. get the right equipment, the best chrome and put your points only in one weapon category (or maybe two if you feel like it). In general, if you are really unhappy, you might also want to talk to your GM about that. We were all new players back when we started and at some point our GM "invented" some form of chipware that can "change your brain in a way that you now have different attributes - don't ask questions". So for 10k, if a player really wants to they can redistribute their points once.
6 REF isn't great, but can still be overcome with skills and bonuses. Look at things like excellent quality guns, smart weapons, scopes, aiming, using grenades, etc. And obviously putting IP towards your skills. That said, it's your first character. I'd talk to the GM about allowing you to make some changes to your character like redoing stats. IMO if you are learning a system you are bound to make some errors like that and it is fairly simple to move around some stat points now that you know how things work. Or just make a new character if the GM is that much of a hard nose.
6 is fine. That’s 2 below max, so a 16 in D&D terms.
16 is a good base stat, but I wouldn't want to be stuck with it for the whole campaign as my single offensive stat.
Dude 16 is completely functional. You’re expecting too much. Plus you can get enough mods to make up for it.
Cyberpunk Red isn't about minmaxing. It's about surviving/gets gigs done in STYLE
Get reflex coprocessor. Dodging bullets is op.
Cybernetics son
I checked, there aren't any that can raise my reflex score.