Non-shaman investing heavily in charisma

[Vandal]

I've spent an hour yesterday trying the first 10 minutes of the game with different classes, and I think I've decided - but i want to ask a question first. I love solving problems in RPG via conversations, and talking my way out of situations, so the it's obvious that I will go for charisma/etiquette here.
My first choice was a shaman since his main stat is charisma, but I don't like the summoning mechanics, and the fact that I would have to limit my cybernetics to stay strong in spellcasting.

So I'm going for a Rigger now, but the problem is - is it possible to play him investing only in drones & charisma? I'm a little worried that i will spend a ton of karma on charisma, without buying any other skills belonging to this stat.

[Roshan Crass]

I pretty quickly got 4 (5 with suit) charisma and I got $1000 and a keycode for it without too much playing. Pretty good deal to me.

Don't think you should go too high though.

[Revisor]

The social skills aren't as useful and pretty much always mean only an alternative way of gaining entry or getting a little bit more money. The first two etiquettes will cost 10 karma, the next one 12. I have 3 etiquettes and probably won't invest further unless I have an abundance of karma and nothing better to put it in.

[wulfster42]

You do get some nice conversation options with etiquates...but it's never been a huge time saver..and just saved very small amounts of nyen.

A 4 cha is pretty much worth it for everyone though in my opinion..which gives you 2 etiquates (I like security and academic...gives good money bonuses..and time savers).

If you custom make your character instead of choosing an archtype you can avoid wasting points on skills you don't want..won't use (like melee combat...for instance etc)...and pump other stats up more.

Elf or human gives you 1 bonus cha (human gets 3 bonus karma..which is actually 1 karma left over after boosting cha to 2 ...which elf gets for free). Base stat levels often make a bigger difference then etiquate....having a 4 in most stats will open up options, next up seems to be 7. I'd stick to a 4 cha...and use an outfit to boost it if need be 1 more point.

Riggers work well, and especially work well in combo with decking (Both are int based..so only 1 primary stat needs to be raised).

When starting off a new character..you could go human...giving you 37 starting points (instead of 34 for the other races). Spend 9 points boosting cha to 4 (2+3+4), 5 on body (3 body), 5 on quickness (3 quickness) 5 on int (3 int) 3 on rigging (2 rigging) and 3 on drone bonus (2 drone bonus) and 6 on decking (3 decking).

That leaves 1 karma left over...to spend later as you get more karma. Your priority at that point should be to get rigging up high enough to allow you to use 2 drones (think it's at 5). Which from your base of 3...means 9 more karma (you'll get it very fast. 3 decking lasts quite awhile before you need to upgrade it.

[TheStratovarian]

I will warn, the academia, ive seen used once, but most others, you see alot of use out of. Corporate you get alot of use out of. I was very glad to have cha, at a min, id still recomend 4 cha by the mid game, as you are really the parties face. If you want to skip out of cha at 4, take corporate, and choose between shadowrunner or security for you ettiquette choices. at 6, take those three, security first, shadowrunner 2nd, and corp 3rd.

But sitting at the end of things, im sitting on as human 8 wisdom, 5 body, 3 int, 3 str, 9 charisma, and 5 quickness.

Skill wise, Dodge 5, biotech 3 (Very usefull, its about a 10-20% boost per point.) Spellcasting 7 ranged combat 5, pistol 5. and sitting on about 1 karma near the end of the game. For a rough estimate about where I spent the points at, id say if you are an elf, really, 8 cha is about all you really need. shaman, heck yes, max cha to help with spirit control, those high grade spirits love going awol about turn 3 without it.