Remind me again why people don't like the wheelman.

[Desertpuma]

I think part of the problem is that players think the class, by virtue of its title, should only be able to do the DCon and nothing else. Most Wheelman, with the exception of Gaghiel and 1 other here in Phx, stayed in the vehicle during LSpy and probably most home games. Most Hackers are thought to be completely tied to their computers like they are using desktops from the 60s when in fact they very easily could be more like in the film Hackers as Psion pointed out: Cover Identity making-research doing-codebreaking-analysis masters.

People just don't think enough outside the box about their classes sometimes. How many people do you know as players that take the Soldier to go unarmed or melee combat in emphasis when the Martial Artist is available? Or use the Snoop to do what the Hacker can? For that matter, how many Pointman characters are made to cover the more rarely used skills in a spy setting like Analysis, Bureaucracy, Investigation, and Survival?

The average player compartmentalizes every role and does not tend to look beyond it. The Scientist is an unpolished gem in most cases that few look beyond the 2nd level because they just want the PhD. Maybe my problem is that I know too many players who like to multiclass extensively and never see beyond the 3rd or 4th level of a class much less hit 6th level in a single class in game where the team is only 6th.
 

[gaghiel42]

The average player compartmentalizes every role and does not tend to look beyond it. Maybe my problem is that I know too many players who like to multiclass extensively and never see beyond the 3rd or 4th level of a class much less hit 6th level in a single class in game where the team is only 6th.

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head.  In small groups of just about any game I see, the players almost have to compartmentalize in order to cover all the bases.  Multiclassing is practically required and all that sort of stuff.  I really like the way MC gives us a little flexibility with skill choices as it helps mitigate that a bit, but ultimately its just a fact of life in games that, unless the world is very arbitrarty (which I think is partially the draw to fantasy), players have a much broader spectrum of abilities than a single class focus.

Fantasy has the capacity for iconic characters.  The real world tends to get a little more muddy because the mundane tasks are easier to puzzle out and characters should have a much broader spectrum of abilities.  Most people learn to drive at age 16.  In this age, most people should have a standard appreciation of computer usage.  Etc etc.

When forced to compare starting characters in spycraft with the spies we see in the movies, of course they aren't going to add up.  Most spies have a wide array of training (i.e. Levels) in a variety of tasks. 

The specialist classes are not seen as often in general spy teams, but the members will have most of those roles covered and will be able to improvise the others as needed.  On larger teams, the specialists become more prevalent and you tend to see more focus in one direction or another.

At my table, we typically have 5-7 players so they all try to make someone radically different from the others.  Given less of the spotlight, they need to have their "One thing" that they can do to make them stand out.  In smaller groups this is less noticeable.

[Desertpuma]

When I was running Top Secret back in the early 80s, I always had a collection of NPCs that the most senior member could request to join them on the mission. This was 2-3 player home game. The advantage this created was the players could create what they wanted and than the team leader or most senior character could request additional support. Sometimes it was an electronics/mechanics guy, another time it was a biochemical expert, another it might have been a professional pilot, etc. This is the kind of thing that can be done in home games will not solve the overall problems we are looking at.

For those curious, it was like having a rotating Personal Lieutenant who never ventured more into combat than he needed to so the job would get done. But he would take care of certain aspects of the mission: flying a plane, hacking a computer, falsifying credible documents, acting as an expert/authority for the benefit of the team, etc.  Very much Special Guest Star on Mission: Impossible. My rules for it were very simple. The most senior member or team leader could request someone of half his level. In SC, I would do it as a Profession: Espionage check to get approval and the spend some Rep equal to the level of the requested agent who would be a fully grown NPC.

[baud]

I find the wheel man supplements almost every expert class available. I'd blame the players or the GC for making wheelmen shitty. I've created wheelmen that grapple toe-to-toe with my adventurers, I've made wheelmen ninjas, and I've made wheelmen high-rollers that all kick ass. And can anyone deny the awesome that is wheelman/inventor? My wheelman ninja out runs my player geared to run and jump as far as possible. My wheelmen out grapple my player grappling champions. On that note I've had players play wheelmen and do nothing if it didn't involve a vehicle. Once I had a player make "cosmetic repairs" for two sessions to a chopper he had broken and fixed three sessions prior. This same guy sat in his aston martin at the edge of a south african jungle and wait for the characters to clear the entire jungle and defeat the bad guy at the end before doing anything.

Wheelmen are a great class, they supplement any expert class very well. I'd say when you make a wheelman, don't look at the wheelman class but instead look at the expert classes until you find something else and gain that through leveled feats while gaining a ton of vehicular competence through wheelman levels.

It's been said a few times (I think) that wheelmen "always get away". That being the focus of the class makes it kind of bland if all you are doing is chasing something. It is really up to the players and GC to give the wheelman the flavor he needs to be flashy and successful. They gave him impress, intimidate, profession, and streetwise for this reason.

[Desertpuma]

You could almost say the Wheelman is bard-like or Pointman-lite in some cases. But people only seem to focus on the driving and nothing else.

[Mister Andersen]

One of my favourite builds was a wheelman/grunt

[baud]

You could almost say the Wheelman is bard-like or Pointman-lite in some cases. But people only seem to focus on the driving and nothing else.

exactly, what a crime against the wheelmen, hackers, and infiltrators. At least now there is a thread about it so most people can avoid these pitfalls.

[Desertpuma]

never did try the Wheelman/Inventor but I can certainly imagine it or Wheelman/Guide or even forbid you go Wheelman/Stuntman.

[Morgenstern]

Wheelman/Ninja is the bee's knees .

[TheAuldGrump]

For some reason I have not seen a lot of multiclassing beyond one or two levels and/or an Expert class, even in a campaign that reached 18th level. (There were times in that campaign where I wanted to hang myself. But the players still talk about it with glee.... I think that they enjoyed driving the bats out of my belfry.)

The Auld Grump

[Psion]

never did try the Wheelman/Inventor but I can certainly imagine it or Wheelman/Guide or even forbid you go Wheelman/Stuntman.

One of my gameday pregens is a Wheelman/Stuntman. It's a tough build, but in the hands of the right player, it's a lot of fun.

[gaghiel42]

I've always been sad that there hasn't been an expert class that ever fits with how I play wheelmen, so I end up just multiclassing base classes for more exciting times.

Typically for me it is: Intruder 2/Scientist 2/Wheelman the rest.  Although One Man Army is pretty decent, none of the expert classes has any love for "One hand on the Wheel" or "This is my Boomstick!"

I've never been the wheelman that just sits in the vehicle.  If I can, I usually try to bring my vehicle with me wherever I go. It usually goes something like: GC- "The bad guys are holed up in this abandoned building..." Me- "What sort of walls?" GC- "Shoddy aluminum and wood with plaster or something like that."  Then I wait for the sneaky ones to 'spot' the bad guys and drive on in and say hi.  Cars make pretty decent Shock and Awe weapons.  Almost on par with Flash Bangs.  Combined with them... Unstoppable.

And its always nice to make your skill based/non-combat focused guys learn gunnery.  That way if they want to stay with the vehicle, at least they can shoot something while they're doing it.

[Desertpuma]

I'm curious to know Charlie. How did you handle the LSpy mod Tundra?

[gaghiel42]

As soon as I knew we were gonna be in the snow, I starting planning out what sort of transportation we'd need.  I tricked out my personal vehicle with snow tires instead of run flats, and switched out my Em Services package for weatherizing it.  Then, I made sure the team had a snowmobile, and proceeded to soup up a Snow Tractor for group transit and I believe perhaps even another pick as well (I may have had 2 snowmobiles).  Most of our team were fighter types and not so much Bomb defusers so I was the security guy while they kept people off my back.  I had (mistakenly) packed a bunch of grenades which ended up being of no use to me in the preservation of the rig fight.

I think that with all the crazy planning I had (extra fuel, food, heating stuff, etc) we were able to survive things pretty well, and ended up defusing the bombs with like 4 seconds to go.

We ended up getting jumped in the Snow Cat and our team took care of them with only minor damage to the vehicle itself.  Most of which a couple good mechanics checks and a good application of duct tape and rain ponchos was able to mitigate mostly.

We mostly used the Snow Cat for travel, I don't even think we ended up taking my car along for the ride, instead we hauled the snowmobiles behind the cat and used them to get places quicker if we really needed to.  I want to say that we had a helicopter at some point during the mission (which may have been that other vehicle pick I had, but its been a couple years now so I can't remember) and we used that to drop off more vehicles/supplies at one point or another.  The team had split into two pieces to cover things faster, and we used something like that to rejoin forces.

[gaghiel42]

I think I am gonna make a thread over in the License to Improvise section to play around with the idea of alternative actions in Dramatic Conflicts some more.  Perhaps another for some idea throwing about to fix the wheelman up a bit.  Come on over and lend a hand if you get time.