Shadowrun: Best Negative Qualities? | EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews

From what little I've determined, on paper the sample GA from the book looks pretty good (13 dice on attack).

13 dice for combat, if it is your primary focus, isn't really that hot. It's ok, but not great.

Without stretching, a beginning char (human) can easily have 5 Agility, 5 Skill, +2 Specialization, +2 Smartlink, and that's without anything special, like Agility enhancements, or Adept Powers.

Of course, if you will play that game for a while, and you are using the standard Build Point variant for character creation, it is better not to specialize in the beginning, but rather acquire Skill Specializations from your first Karma awards.

So, what are the best (e.g. least harmful) negative qualities?

It's the wrong way to think about it. It is, of course, quite natural to look at it that way, but you should make your weaknesses part of your character. In the end, it is much more fun that way. You should pick stuff that gives your character an interesting twist, while not being completely debilitating.

Another Idea I had was taking multiple Incompetencies, primarily Artisan, Teaching, and/or Leadership. Any thoughts?

It's pretty bad form to do that, and many GMs will simply disallow taking Negative Qualities that have no impact whatsoever on the character.

Also, how really important is Essence? For an Adept, sure, since it affects their powers, but others?

Essence mostly limits how much cyberstuff you can have. As you mentioned, it has impact on Magic (and Resonance) as well. And it also makes healing more difficult. But Essence, as an Attribute, isn't really used.

Loss of Essence makes you less human, more inhuman, colder, less emotional, less caring. But there are no real guidelines or rules. It can be roleplayed appropriately, if the players want to, or not. Most just ignore its impact on the personality of the characters, I guess, because of the lack of guidelines of what Essence 1 or 2 actually means.

Bioware is great for Adepts, BTW. The Synaptic Accelerator 2, for example, while pricey, only 'costs' 1 Magic for a +2 Reaction/Initiative and +2 IP enhancement, which costs a lot more in Power Points (2.5 IIRC).

Bye
Thanee

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