Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: DarkSpade on <05-10-15/1313:28>
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Here's the basic concept of this character. Mage working in corporate security manages to stop a shadowrun but is hurt bad enough to require significant cybernetic implants. He aims for combat centric parts so he can keep doing his job, but he's told by the corp he was hired to throw fireballs not punches. He's fired and turns to shadowrunning.
I'm thinking there's two ways to do this, but I'm not sure which to go with.
1) Just make a street samurai and give him a lot of magic knowledge.
Pros:
- Works well in the short term.
- easy to write up
- normal early game power level
Cons:
- Character sheet won't truly represent the character
- No way to ever regain magic abilities of any kind(that I'm aware of)
2) Create the magic throwing pre injury character first(including some basic combat skills a security guy should have) and then cyber him up, specifically aiming for combat centric upgrades while not worrying too much about essence cost.
Pros:
- Character sheet will be accurate to the character.
- Possibly retaining a small amount of magic ability. ("did that street samurai just counter spell me!?!")
- Possible for him to regain some magic use over time(?)
Cons:
- Character will likely be under powered for awhile.
Clearly option one would be the best solution for a one off game or a short campaign, but option 2 seems like a better choice for the long term. I just worry that if the group I'm starting up with falls a part after a few weeks, I'll never fully see it develop. I'm not worried about min/maxing a character, but I don't want to be a waste of space either.
Thoughts or suggestions?
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Sacrificing a point of essence as a mage isn't too painful. You can get a datajack and cerebral boosters and have room for a bit more. You take a hit with your magic but gain drain dice (assuming a logic based tradition). Grab a reflex recorder while you're at it.
You'll want to keep with increased reflexes for your initiative boost, which takes a huge load off of your nuyen requirements.
You obviously want to stick with bioware when possible to avoid essence concerns, but if you want to look awesome with some cyberwar that wouldn't be out of the question either. Its just that beyond sacrificing a point of magic you begin the transition to burned out mage.
I think the important thing to focus on would be buff spells using focused concentration and sustaining foci. You can still be perfectly functional as a mage with 1 point of essence loss, but beyond that you'll be hampering your ability to sling fireballs well.
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The biggest problem is "significant" ware degrades a stat you paid high price for, basically meaning you pay the same cost and get much lesser value. Most mages don't want to lose more than 1 MAG from ware. Lose more and you e effectively thrown points out the window. But for 1 ESS you can get a good package of stuff that DOES offset the loss. Just when you're taking loss of more than 1 it's questionable to take magic in the first place
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While Zarzak's suggestions are sensible, I don't think that's what you see your character would be doing. So let's see if we can do that...
Now, Priority Chargen doesn't need to follow the character's life story - if your character used to be a decent mage, that doesn't mean we have to buy up Magic at A or B to simulate that. And since we're losing that anyway, let's look at something like
Resources A
Abilities B
Magic C
Skills D
Metatype E
(I don't like Skills D, but Abilities D would be worse, I think. Sum-to-10 will improve it, I think - ACCCE is better. You could actually go Magic D for this build as well; Aspected Sorcerer isn't a huge loss for you).
Basically you'd build it as standard Street Sam, except you don't go below 1 Essence. Then you buy up your magic back up to 1 for 5 karma. Normally, this would be cheesy, and (while it's according to the rules) many a GM may throw you a funky look, but truth is this build is suboptimal (you're basically throwing away your C priority for a gimmick) so it should be fine.
This leaves you with a street sam - a bit weaker, because of less skills, and with less edge. But you still have 1 point of Magic, and that means you can use Magic skills. Obviously, you shouldn't try actually casting anything, but you can get Counterspelling for Spell Defense, and Assensing for astral perception (which will make people go WTF). Those don't depend on Magic at all, I believe.
In the far, far future, your magical potential is unlimited - you can initiate and raise magic in an infinite loop - but honestly, that's not going to be worth the karma.
Let's not kid ourselves - this is not optimized in the slightest. If you build it well, it may be an effective character, however, and an interesting one at that.
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IF SUM 10 Go
Attributes B; Skills B; Resources C; Magic C; Race Human E
And limit your Cyberware to essence-3 (this gives Magic 1, a magic 2 would be better)
With this you could still have a moderately decent Sam
I would go with an intuition based style for magic. As you will want it high for assessing and perception anyways
Spells I would take Increase Reflex and Heal defiantly. If you are willing to take a fairly harsh skill drop you can put quite a bit into spell casting heal spells and still be pretty good with them
Some Str and agility boosters, or maybe just a cyberarm. Yes expensive, but lets face it nothing says not a mage like a decked out obvious cyberarm. In a bit I will retire to the other room and see what I can throw together based on a standard build ABCDE)
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While Zarzak's suggestions are sensible, I don't think that's what you see your character would be doing. So let's see if we can do that...
Now, Priority Chargen doesn't need to follow the character's life story - if your character used to be a decent mage, that doesn't mean we have to buy up Magic at A or B to simulate that. And since we're losing that anyway, let's look at something like
Resources A
Abilities B
Magic C
Skills D
Metatype E
(I don't like Skills D, but Abilities D would be worse, I think. Sum-to-10 will improve it, I think - ACCCE is better. You could actually go Magic D for this build as well; Aspected Sorcerer isn't a huge loss for you).
Basically you'd build it as standard Street Sam, except you don't go below 1 Essence. Then you buy up your magic back up to 1 for 5 karma. Normally, this would be cheesy, and (while it's according to the rules) many a GM may throw you a funky look, but truth is this build is suboptimal (you're basically throwing away your C priority for a gimmick) so it should be fine.
This leaves you with a street sam - a bit weaker, because of less skills, and with less edge. But you still have 1 point of Magic, and that means you can use Magic skills. Obviously, you shouldn't try actually casting anything, but you can get Counterspelling for Spell Defense, and Assensing for astral perception (which will make people go WTF). Those don't depend on Magic at all, I believe.
In the far, far future, your magical potential is unlimited - you can initiate and raise magic in an infinite loop - but honestly, that's not going to be worth the karma.
Let's not kid ourselves - this is not optimized in the slightest. If you build it well, it may be an effective character, however, and an interesting one at that.
I don't think spellcasting needs to be out of the question. Buff spells are still going to work perfectly well. Sure you won't be melting faces or manipulating minds or whatnot, but there is still a lot you can do that can directly benefit your new street sam role. Take Improved Reflexes.
Lets say you have a character with a magic rating of 2, spellcasting 6, a focus in health spells, and +2 to health spells from a mentor spirit (bear or mutation). Thats 12 dice for health spells, meaning you can plan on a fairly reliable 2 hits for improved reflexes. Grab a sustaining focus and you're set. You just emulated one of the big money sinks for a street sam - wired reflexes.
Same thing with Increase Agility, Increase Strength, etc.
Actually, its not a half-bad idea, now that I think more on it. Sure its not as optimal as other paths, but I don't think its unplayable.
Take your Mentor Spirit - Bear or Mutation (both can be useful for a street sam type of character). Focus in Health spells. Also be a Mystic Adept, to get some more intrinsic boosts.
Spend skill points on spellcasting, counterspelling, maybe assessing, and your gun skills/street sam skills. Max out agility, get a decent body score, have a good drain score (logic/will, for example), get some solid intuition. Make sure you start with preferably Magic 2.
Grab a datajack, cerebral boosters, reflex recorder (for your primary firearm skill). Maybe some cyber eyes/cyber ears, maybe a cyber arm with a cyber weapon, or some agility boosters. Also get some sustaining health foci, and maybe a spellcasting health foci.
Grab Increase Reflexes, Increase Agility, maybe a few other buff type spells, and Heal.
All of the sudden you're a street sam who is enhancing his physical stats partly through 'ware, partly through sustained spells, with a powerpoint or two thrown in for good measure.
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Problem with KMart mages (lots of foci and sustained spells) is that as soon as you hit any kind of background count you've got serious problems. Also, any kind of Astral security is going to be a cold hard stop for the character.
I would use Top Dog's suggestion if your GM was willing to play along. Astral Perception + Sustained Silence spell + Thermographic Smoke + Monowhip = Mad Lulz. True story.
Force 4 spirits are easy to summon, and should usually result in no drain. Having your own counterspell pool isn't bad. Your main problem will be Skills D.
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Something I put together quick
Needs a good sustaining foci still (Should be able to get one after a couple runs)
A little bit more mage like than I originally intended btw. Most of the focus is on the cyber arm...However in truth probably could drop it and play around with gear to get the foci...
Unnamed Hero
METATYPE: HUMAN
B 3, A 2/4, R 3, S 2/4, W 5, L 2, I 6, C 2, ESS 4.16, EDG 3, M 4
Condition Monitor (P/S): 11 / 11
Armor: 14
Limits: Physical 5, Mental 5, Social 5
Physical Initiative: 9+1D6
Astral Initiative: 12+3D6
Active Skills: Alchemy (Command +2) 2, Assensing 5, Athletics Group 1, Automatics 4, Counterspelling 6, Influence Group 1, Perception 5, Sneaking (Urban +2) 6, Spellcasting (Health Spells +2) 6, Unarmed Combat 4
Knowledge Skills: Arcane Lore 4, Magic Theory 5, Security (<CORP> +2) 6
Languages: English N
Qualities: Buddhist Magician, Jack of All Trades, Master of None, Mentor Spirit: Shark, SINner (Corporate Limited SIN): Company, Weak Immune System
Spells: Detect Life, Extended, Flame Burst, Heal, Heal, Increase Reflexes, Lightning Bolt, Stunbolt, Trid Phantasm
Alchemical Preparations: Increase Charisma, Resist Pain
Augmentations:
. . Cyber Arm (Obvious) (Alphaware) (Main Hand) w/ Cyberlimb Agility (9), Cyberlimb Strength (9), Enhanced Agility (Alphaware) (3), Enhanced Armor +2 (Alphaware) (2), Enhanced Strength (Alphaware) (3), Large Smuggling Compartment (Alphaware)
. . . . Hand Blade (Alphaware)
. . Cybereyes (Alphaware) (2) w/ Flare Compensation (Alphaware), Image Link (Alphaware), Smartlink (Alphaware), Thermographic Vision (Alphaware), Vision Magnification (Alphaware)
. . Muscle Augmentation (2)
. . Muscle Toner (2)
Gear:
. . Armor Jacket w/ Concealable Holster, Fire Resistance (6), Nonconductivity (6), Shock Frills, YNT Softweave
. . Backpack
. . Certified Credstick, Gold
. . Flashlight, Thermographic
. . Medkit (3)
. . Metal Restraints
. . Micro-Tranceiver
. . Plastic Restraints x10
. . Respirator (1)
. . Subvocal Microphone
. . Survival Kit
. . Tag Eraser
. . Transys Avalon Commlink w/ Mapsoft: CITY
Weapons:
. . Ares Crusader II [Machine Pistol, Acc 7, DV 7P, AP –, SA/BF, RC 2, 40 (c)] w/ (80x) APDS, (40x) Explosive Rounds, Gas-Vent System (2), Gecko Grip, (40x) Regular Ammo, Smartgun System, Internal, (4x) Spare Clips, (40x) Stick-n-Shock
. . Hand Blade (Alphaware) [Unarmed, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -2]
. . Survival Knife [Blade, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -1]
Contacts:
Fixer (Connection 4, Loyalty 2)
Starting ¥: 3D6 × 60¥
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Shadowrun © 2005-2015 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc.
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Problem with KMart mages (lots of foci and sustained spells) is that as soon as you hit any kind of background count you've got serious problems. Also, any kind of Astral security is going to be a cold hard stop for the character.
I would use Top Dog's suggestion if your GM was willing to play along. Astral Perception + Sustained Silence spell + Thermographic Smoke + Monowhip = Mad Lulz. True story.
Force 4 spirits are easy to summon, and should usually result in no drain. Having your own counterspell pool isn't bad. Your main problem will be Skills D.
The nice thing is that, beyond relying on improved reflexes (which most mages would do) you have your implements to fall back on. Astral Security + Background Count are problems for any mage, so I don't see that as a real impairment here (i.e. if the game master wants to screw over the character he will, same thing as with a 'normal' mage). Just like MAD scanners can cause problems for a cybered up street sam, etc. etc.
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Something I put together quick
Needs a good sustaining foci still (Should be able to get one after a couple runs)
A little bit more mage like than I originally intended btw. Most of the focus is on the cyber arm...However in truth probably could drop it and play around with gear to get the foci...
Unnamed Hero
METATYPE: HUMAN
B 3, A 2/4, R 3, S 2/4, W 5, L 2, I 6, C 2, ESS 4.16, EDG 3, M 4
Condition Monitor (P/S): 11 / 11
Armor: 14
Limits: Physical 5, Mental 5, Social 5
Physical Initiative: 9+1D6
Astral Initiative: 12+3D6
Active Skills: Alchemy (Command +2) 2, Assensing 5, Athletics Group 1, Automatics 4, Counterspelling 6, Influence Group 1, Perception 5, Sneaking (Urban +2) 6, Spellcasting (Health Spells +2) 6, Unarmed Combat 4
Knowledge Skills: Arcane Lore 4, Magic Theory 5, Security (<CORP> +2) 6
Languages: English N
Qualities: Buddhist Magician, Jack of All Trades, Master of None, Mentor Spirit: Shark, SINner (Corporate Limited SIN): Company, Weak Immune System
Spells: Detect Life, Extended, Flame Burst, Heal, Heal, Increase Reflexes, Lightning Bolt, Stunbolt, Trid Phantasm
Alchemical Preparations: Increase Charisma, Resist Pain
Augmentations:
. . Cyber Arm (Obvious) (Alphaware) (Main Hand) w/ Cyberlimb Agility (9), Cyberlimb Strength (9), Enhanced Agility (Alphaware) (3), Enhanced Armor +2 (Alphaware) (2), Enhanced Strength (Alphaware) (3), Large Smuggling Compartment (Alphaware)
. . . . Hand Blade (Alphaware)
. . Cybereyes (Alphaware) (2) w/ Flare Compensation (Alphaware), Image Link (Alphaware), Smartlink (Alphaware), Thermographic Vision (Alphaware), Vision Magnification (Alphaware)
. . Muscle Augmentation (2)
. . Muscle Toner (2)
Gear:
. . Armor Jacket w/ Concealable Holster, Fire Resistance (6), Nonconductivity (6), Shock Frills, YNT Softweave
. . Backpack
. . Certified Credstick, Gold
. . Flashlight, Thermographic
. . Medkit (3)
. . Metal Restraints
. . Micro-Tranceiver
. . Plastic Restraints x10
. . Respirator (1)
. . Subvocal Microphone
. . Survival Kit
. . Tag Eraser
. . Transys Avalon Commlink w/ Mapsoft: CITY
Weapons:
. . Ares Crusader II [Machine Pistol, Acc 7, DV 7P, AP –, SA/BF, RC 2, 40 (c)] w/ (80x) APDS, (40x) Explosive Rounds, Gas-Vent System (2), Gecko Grip, (40x) Regular Ammo, Smartgun System, Internal, (4x) Spare Clips, (40x) Stick-n-Shock
. . Hand Blade (Alphaware) [Unarmed, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -2]
. . Survival Knife [Blade, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -1]
Contacts:
Fixer (Connection 4, Loyalty 2)
Starting ¥: 3D6 × 60¥
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Shadowrun © 2005-2015 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc.
Looks like you've got Heal twice.
You've got a lot invested in Unarmed combat with all the augments. May I suggest Monowhip? Drop the Muscle Augmentation and the Cyberlimb str, put a Monowhip in the finger. Profit. If you stick with Unarmed you could add a shock glove and still drop the Str augments to free up cash if you want. Or not, stabbing isn't bad.
I'd drop Alchemy and the stealth specialization and get Automatics and whatever your melee combat skill is maxed out. Pick up low level Alchemy with Karma if you still want it.
You've got lots of ways of killing people. If you max out Automatics, you'll rarely use combat spells. Physical Mask? Physical Invisibility? Levitation? Silence? Lots of good utility out there. If you're planning on spamming combat spells, do you really need Automatics? Large opportunity cost is what I'm getting at when you take multiple combat skills. Fits the character concept though to have both skills, but you can Max out Automatics, grab a few grenades and drop the combat spells for more utility.
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Something I put together quick
Needs a good sustaining foci still (Should be able to get one after a couple runs)
A little bit more mage like than I originally intended btw. Most of the focus is on the cyber arm...However in truth probably could drop it and play around with gear to get the foci...
Unnamed Hero
METATYPE: HUMAN
B 3, A 2/4, R 3, S 2/4, W 5, L 2, I 6, C 2, ESS 4.16, EDG 3, M 4
Condition Monitor (P/S): 11 / 11
Armor: 14
Limits: Physical 5, Mental 5, Social 5
Physical Initiative: 9+1D6
Astral Initiative: 12+3D6
Active Skills: Alchemy (Command +2) 2, Assensing 5, Athletics Group 1, Automatics 4, Counterspelling 6, Influence Group 1, Perception 5, Sneaking (Urban +2) 6, Spellcasting (Health Spells +2) 6, Unarmed Combat 4
Knowledge Skills: Arcane Lore 4, Magic Theory 5, Security (<CORP> +2) 6
Languages: English N
Qualities: Buddhist Magician, Jack of All Trades, Master of None, Mentor Spirit: Shark, SINner (Corporate Limited SIN): Company, Weak Immune System
Spells: Detect Life, Extended, Flame Burst, Heal, Heal, Increase Reflexes, Lightning Bolt, Stunbolt, Trid Phantasm
Alchemical Preparations: Increase Charisma, Resist Pain
Augmentations:
. . Cyber Arm (Obvious) (Alphaware) (Main Hand) w/ Cyberlimb Agility (9), Cyberlimb Strength (9), Enhanced Agility (Alphaware) (3), Enhanced Armor +2 (Alphaware) (2), Enhanced Strength (Alphaware) (3), Large Smuggling Compartment (Alphaware)
. . . . Hand Blade (Alphaware)
. . Cybereyes (Alphaware) (2) w/ Flare Compensation (Alphaware), Image Link (Alphaware), Smartlink (Alphaware), Thermographic Vision (Alphaware), Vision Magnification (Alphaware)
. . Muscle Augmentation (2)
. . Muscle Toner (2)
Gear:
. . Armor Jacket w/ Concealable Holster, Fire Resistance (6), Nonconductivity (6), Shock Frills, YNT Softweave
. . Backpack
. . Certified Credstick, Gold
. . Flashlight, Thermographic
. . Medkit (3)
. . Metal Restraints
. . Micro-Tranceiver
. . Plastic Restraints x10
. . Respirator (1)
. . Subvocal Microphone
. . Survival Kit
. . Tag Eraser
. . Transys Avalon Commlink w/ Mapsoft: CITY
Weapons:
. . Ares Crusader II [Machine Pistol, Acc 7, DV 7P, AP –, SA/BF, RC 2, 40 (c)] w/ (80x) APDS, (40x) Explosive Rounds, Gas-Vent System (2), Gecko Grip, (40x) Regular Ammo, Smartgun System, Internal, (4x) Spare Clips, (40x) Stick-n-Shock
. . Hand Blade (Alphaware) [Unarmed, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -2]
. . Survival Knife [Blade, Acc 5, DV 11P, AP -1]
Contacts:
Fixer (Connection 4, Loyalty 2)
Starting ¥: 3D6 × 60¥
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Shadowrun © 2005-2015 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc.
A few comments:
Stats: Drop Logic and Charisma further to boost Agility. Agility is going to be one of your key skills.
Skills: Alchemy is useless for you, the Influence skill group is also worthless. Unarmed Combat is worthless for you - you don't have the stats for it. Sneaking is higher than you really need. Boost up Automatics to 6 and get a specialization and max Assessing. Move a point or so from sneaking over to etiquette if you want it.
Qualities: Jack of All Trades is not helping you. Shark as a mentor spirit isn't helping you much; you probably want Bear (if boosting health), or perhaps Mutation or Doom.
Spells: You have Heal twice, as mentioned. You should probably have more buff spells.
Alchemical Preparations - I'd drop these and just focus on spells and guns, otherwise you'll be spreading yourself too thin.
Augmentations:
You should really get a reflex recorder to help with skills, and a data jack. For your cyberarm I'd drop the hand blade and get a cyber gun. Again - you don't have the stats for melee.
Gear:
Sustaining foci are required for you. You've got a lot of fluffy gear you can cut if you need the nuyen.
Contacts:
You'll probably want a street doc (for your cyber stuff) as well as your fixer. But I can see with just keeping a solid fixer.
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Not fully fleshed out but you get the picture:
a Money 450000
b Magic Magician MR4 2 Rating 4Magic Skills 7 Spells
c Attributes 16
d Skills 22
e Human (1) Increase Edge to 3
Qualities/Karma Expenditure
25 Starting Karma
-15 Burnout's Way
-5 Mentor Spirit: Bear
Buddhist Magician
-25 Karma to get MR back up to 3 from 1 (due to augmentations)
+10 Weak Immune System
+8 Prejudiced/Radical towards anyone a citizen/employee of Megacorp that fired you
+1 Record on File (Corporation that fired you, you get your Corporate SIN revoked when fired)
+4 Albinism
-2 Buy Arcan 1 skill
Net 1 Karma
Augmentations
74438 Used Obvious Cyberarm AGI 9/ STR9 1.25
w/Armor 2, Lg Smuggling Compartment, Retractable hand Razors
This would drop you 2 MR giving the rest the Burnout Way essence discount.
I went for the razors instead of the blade because i like 10P -3 over 11P -2
28000 Cybereyes (3)
w/Flare Comp,Lowlight,Smartlink, Therographic,Vision Enh 2,Vision Mag. .32
64000 Muscle Toner 2 0.32
62000 Muscle Augmentation 2 0.32
63000 Celebral Booster 2 0.32
14000 Reflex Recorder-Automatics 0.08
14000 Reflex Recorder-Unarmed 0.08
1000 Datajack 0.08
17000 Platelet Factories 0.16
This leaves you with 112562 nuyen to spend...rember to buy health sustaing focus for improved reflex spell...
B 3, A 2(4), R 3, S 2(4), W 5, L 1(3), I 6, C 3, ESS 3.07, EDG 3, M 3
Active Skills
Spellcasting 4 (from priority B) +2 (from skill points)= 6
Counterspelling 4 (from priority B) +2 (from skill points)= 6
Automatics 4
Assensing 3
Unarmed Combat 4
Sneaking 3
Perception 4
Arcana 1
First thing I'd do is save the karma to initiate and raise the MR to 4.
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Adept Ways are for adepts only. They are called Adept Ways for a reason! :P
Hint: Mystic adepts are adepts too.
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Alcamy was an afterthought because of having so many spells.
I did go magic a. If I was using build 10 I would have done it different
Unarmed combat...agility and strength of 9 is not good enough? I know body is low but seriously? 15 dice of attack as well...
However point was to give op some ideas
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Alcamy was an afterthought because of having so many spells.
I did go magic a. If I was using build 10 I would have done it different
Unarmed combat...agility and strength of 9 is not good enough? I know body is low but seriously? 15 dice of attack as well...
However point was to give op some ideas
You've only got that with 1 arm though, your body+armor is low, and there's really no benefit for it over automatics. Heavy weapons would be a better secondary skills (for a grenade launcher/cyber grenade launcher). And if you really wanted to get some close combat skill why not blades?
But yeah, true. :)
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I'll give a better reply later when I'm not using a phone, but for now I just want to say thanks for all the feed back. You guys have given me a lot to think about! ;D
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Same on phone
To answer why unarmed. ..shark and arm
Had a couple revisions in mind. Will post tonight
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Alchemy has truly punishing mechanics that make it inferior to Spellcasting in every way. Not to mention you need to buy the spells separately. So if you have Heal as a spell you can't just make an alchemical preparation t of it. You have to buy and learn it as a preparation too.
That's pretty bad. The rules, which basically just serve to limit the power and duration of anything you make to a drastic degree, generally makes it terribly useless
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How in terms of numbers how much is signficant? It would be very easy to go with something like lost an arm. In terms of visual impact it will come across as signficant. In terms of system it's a totally doable loss. It's not as nice as just puttinh in some headware, but unlike headware it's visable and makes a good story. It can also be systematically efficent allowing you to dump physicals.
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The big issue with a cyberarm and dumped physicals is its not going to help your Physical Limit much meaning a very low cap for important dice pools like defense tests. And it won't help with movement either.
Of course that's what Full Defense is for but you need to reliably hit 20+ initiative for that to be worthwhile. Or sustain Combat Sense, which is great but causes its own resource management and aura issues, even playing the spell Limit-set game with reagents. And even that just boosts your defense dice pool and does nothing for a low physical Limit.
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The big issue with a cyberarm and dumped physicals is its not going to help your Physical Limit much meaning a very low cap for important dice pools like defense tests. And it won't help with movement either.
Of course that's what Full Defense is for but you need to reliably hit 20+ initiative for that to be worthwhile. Or sustain Combat Sense, which is great but causes its own resource management and aura issues, even playing the spell Limit-set game with reagents. And even that just boosts your defense dice pool and does nothing for a low physical Limit.
If they go mystic adept as the 'base' they can grab combat sense using powerpoint. :)
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If the magic aspect of this character remains optimized, even in its reduced state, what motivation does the corp have for firing him?
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If they go mystic adept as the 'base' they can grab combat sense using powerpoint. :)
1. That still does not help with the Limit to the defense tests. You can have as big a dice pool as you want, with a low Limit, you're still going to get shredded.
2. At a certain point doing things like this, you just start committing limited resources to shore up a build that is slightly shoddy at the foundations. MysAd is actually a terrible idea here because if you go MysAd, you want to take PP equal to your Magic, and that takes away from your karma. It's really better to just invest in a R1 sustaining focus and play a Limit trick than expand into yet another thing you need to invest in to make good.
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2. At a certain point doing things like this, you just start committing limited resources to shore up a build that is slightly shoddy at the foundations. MysAd is actually a terrible idea here because if you go MysAd, you want to take PP equal to your Magic, and that takes away from your karma. It's really better to just invest in a R1 sustaining focus and play a Limit trick than expand into yet another thing you need to invest in to make good.
I disagree - for this build concept you wouldn't necessarily need PP equal to your magic. I really doubt you'd be astrally projecting as a burnout mage, so you're not really losing anything by going mystic adept.
I mean, really - you only need 1 powerpoint if you think about it. If you were going to get an R1 sustaining focus for combat sense thats 2 karma to bind it, and 4k for the focus (which converts to 2 karma). So thats a 4-karma investment plus buying the spell. So you're really not spending that much more for a permanent, always-on combat sense.
1 PP doesn't just get you 1 level of combat sense, you still have .5 PP for another level of combat sense, or enhanced perception (if you need it), or some attribute boosts in agility, or improved ability, or improved potential, or etc. etc.
That seems like a pretty good deal?
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Adept Ways are for adepts only. They are called Adept Ways for a reason! :P
Hint: Mystic adepts are adepts too.
I was thinking mystic adept when I wrote it and then when I started copying some of the stuff from the poster (like the base stats-you notice I just removed 1 fom LOG and added one to CHA) and I copied over Buddhist Magician and suddenly my brain turned to mush and I forgot that I was making a mystic adept but left the Way in and the augmentation bonus...in which case he'd should read MR 2 and have 2 Power points. which leaves 6 Karma... ah well, what you get for trying to type on three hours rest, my bad.
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I disagree - for this build concept you wouldn't necessarily need PP equal to your magic.
This is pretty much never the right idea.
I really doubt you'd be astrally projecting as a burnout mage, so you're not really losing anything by going mystic adept.
Um. Why? Now, personally I think giving up projection for PP is a no-brainer. But that doesn't interact at all with lower Essence. The use of projection is scouting, not fighting - hell, not even fighting spirits. Maybe messing with foci, but there are better things to be doing in combat time than that typically.
I mean, really - you only need 1 powerpoint if you think about it. If you were going to get an R1 sustaining focus for combat sense thats 2 karma to bind it, and 4k for the focus (which converts to 2 karma). So thats a 4-karma investment plus buying the spell. So you're really not spending that much more for a permanent, always-on combat sense.
It's still not really worth it. Great you have Combat Sense 1. With the focus and some creative spellcasting, you'd likely be able to generate 3-4 hits.
I love taking Combat Sense 6, but in a lot of ways a spell can be more effective, particularly on a MAG starved build.
That seems like a pretty good deal?
Eh not really. If you want to go MysAd, the true payout is going whole hog with 6 PP and obviating the need for multiple spells, or picking up tricks that don't translate into spells. And that requires a big karma investment into the PP. For 1 PP, I think projection is more worthwhile. At least you can do an astral scouting.
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Okay, real keyboard now. 8)
Something I should have mentioned in my original post. This will only be my second time playing Shadowrun outside of the video games and my first time creating a character for it. I'm certainly going to have to reread the magic and cybernetics sections again to make sure I've got this all down. In our first campaign no player took either.
I'm not worried about optimizing the character's magic. As Kincaid pointed out, if he still has useful magic, there's no reason to fire him. For his magic I'm more concerned with him having it than I am it being useful in combat at the start. I view him being more concerned at this point with improving his combat abilities than he is with adapting to his new found magic deficiency. If he does throw a spell it would be more of a bluff than anything else. Maybe mana bolt at the beginning of combat to draw attention from the team's actual mage. Of course, he'd have to intentionally miss to hide how weak the bolt really is. He'd still try for a spell counter when needed, but otherwise magic will be an after thought in combat. I kind of see him being a bit bitter about what happened, at least at the beginning. As the character grows, I may start spending some karma to reacquire some of his lost magic. I do love the idea of him still having some access to astral stuff since it could lead to some interesting uses and could even see him using it to help fake others into thinking he's the team's mage.
For combat, I plan to give him some pistol skills but otherwise focusing in melee. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch since as a security team member(I'm thinking former mid level rapid response team) it's likely he got some kind of physical training. I keep picturing him fighting with some kind of retractable blade hidden in each forearm as his main weapon. I like the idea of some thug charging at him thinking he's about to geek the mage and not noticing the cyber arms until he's got a fist and a blade in his gut.
As for exactly how significant his injuries were, that will depend on how much cyberware I can get away with(and afford) in character creation and still maintain that 1 point of magic. The more limbs replaced the better and I'd like to get the eyes replaced too. I know the more you take can also result in penalties for some social interaction checks, but I'm not aiming to make this guy likable.
There's some other questions I have.
- Lorewise, I only know the basic world. Is there any particular corporation that would work well for the character's background?
- What are some good contact ideas? He's rather new to shadowrunning so he probably won't have some of the standards like a fixer or arms dealer(have to rely on teammate's contacts). What kind of contacts does a former wage slave have?
- I know previous editions have had supplements with a lot of new cyberware. Has 5th ed gotten anything like that yet?
And again, thank you all for the feed back. It's good to know this idea is plausible.
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Just FYI, unlike the games, you cannot actually miss with direct combat spells. They're basically a surge of mana between your aura and your target's. They can be fully resisted, that's all.
I would also say not devoting too much to Magic (that you're just going to lose) just because you really are just pouring finite resources down the drain. So start with lower Magic is my suggestion but don't try to fit in 5 Essence of ware - with the priorities involved to do this, you will be significantly less powerful than probably everyone else on your team.
Contacts...you just want something useful. A corporate headhunter who still has a soft spot for you or who thinks you got a raw deal might be a good one.
Run & Gun might have some new ware? Nothing like 4th's Augmentation is out though.
And one more piece of advice: if you want to fake people into thinking you're that mage, you damn well better be able to weather the focused fire they will throw your way.
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So, mechanically speaking:
A - Attributes; this way you can have both good drain and you can have solid physical stats
B - Nuyen; you need a lot of nuyen for cyberware. You can get away with priority B if you use increase reflexes
C - Magic; you need at least magic C to start as a magician/mystic adept
D - Skills; This is where you're really getting hurt, but skills are "easiest" to raise ignore
E - Metatype; Gotta sacrifice something, and your edge is the sacrifice.
Attributes:
With an A in Attributes you can start with 5's in Body/Strength/Willpower/Intuition, a 6 in agility, a 2 in logic, a 3 in reaction, a 1 in charisma ... for example. 3 in Edge, of course.
Qualities:
You want Mentor Spirit. You could go Shark (+2 to unarmed combat), or Bear (+2 to health spells). Your call. Or something completely else. I'd go with the +2 to health spells, personally - your unarmed will be high enough that it won't need the boost, but you'll be relying on Increase Reflexes for your initiative boost. Bear also gives damage resistance, which is nice for your concept.
Agile Defender from Run 'n' Gun could be useful.
You'll also need negative qualities, as you'll need the karma for magic (15 karma gets you 2 points of magic), and skills, and possibly more nuyen.
Skills:
6 points in Unarmed and a specialization in Spurs
6 points in Automatics (or whatever gun skill you want) and a specialization.
6 points in spellcasting and a specialization in health spells. If you also get dice from mentor spirits you'd have 12 dice for health spells with magic 2, which actually isn't too shabby.
So thats already 21 points out of your 22 available and you don't have perception, sneak, etiquette, counterspelling, assensing (if you can get it) ... you get the idea. So that would be a big weak point. You can remedy it a bit with karma (buy a point or two in etiquette, perception, and sneak), but even so.
Spells:
Heal, Increase Reflexes, and Increase Strength (or agility, but I'd think you'd want to bioware up your agility instead) or so I'd say are minimum requirements. Whiskeyjack feels that you should get Combat Sense here, I'd argue its better to be a mystic adept and buy a powerpoint and do it. You do need a source of Combat Sense, regardless. You'd have room for 1 direct damage spell as well, given that you start with 5 spells (this is actually a little unclear ... you get 5 spells from your priority, but your max is magicx2, which would be 4 spells with magic 2. Not sure how this works).
For your tradition, Street Grimoire has INT+WILL traditions. Those would be best, stat-wise (INT gives you initiative, WILL gives you stun boxes, so you want those stats anyways).
Gear:
You can easily afford two fully base-statted (agility 6/strength 6) obvious cyberarms with spurs in each. You can afford a datajack, a reflex recorder (unarmed), muscle toner (you could have a nice 8 augmented agility), solid cybereyes and solid cyberears. You can afford a motorcycle or such, a nice gun, nice armor, and some sustaining health foci. Of course you'll also have enough nuyen for the basics - Fake SIN/licenses/commlinks. You'll also want some reagents for nice increase reflexes, at least.
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RP-speaking:
Corps for your background: Honestly, I think almost any corps works here. Low-level security goons aren't too different from corps to corps. Pick one that you can see your character working for in the past. I think Ares is pretty cool so I usually give my characters contacts with them, for instance.
Contact Ideas : You'll probably be dumping charisma (given that you need good physical stats and drain stats), so you might only be able to afford one. Whiskeyjack's idea here is probably the best thing.
Supplements with Cyberware: Nothing really yet, at least.
:)
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This is a rough draft, did not buy all his equipment etc,
I also find it interesting how close to Zarzak's ideas I was, Only big difference was swapping skills for attributes
here is what I came up with, You will want to buy regents BTW
Unnamed Hero
METATYPE: HUMAN
B 3, A 2/4, R 4, S 2/4, W 3, L 2, I 6, C 2, ESS 4, EDG 2, M 2
Condition Monitor (P/S): 11 / 10
Armor: 2
Limits: Physical 6, Mental 5, Social 4
Physical Initiative: 10+1D6
Astral Initiative: 12+3D6
Active Skills: Alchemy 1, Assensing 6, Athletics Group 4, Close Combat Group 6, Counterspelling 6, Etiquette 1, Perception (Visual +2) 6, Pistols (Semi-Automatics +2) 6, Sneaking (Urban +2) 6, Spellcasting (Health Spells +2) 6, Summoning 6
Languages: English N
Qualities: Focused Concentration (2), Hermetic Magician, Indomitable (Physical) (1), Mentor Spirit: Bear, Perceptive Defender
Spells: Heal, Increase Charisma, Increase Reflexes, Trid Phantasm
Alchemical Preparations: Fireball
Augmentations:
. . Cyber Arm (Obvious) (Main Hand) w/ Cyberarm Slide, Cyberlimb Agility (9), Cyberlimb Strength (9), Enhanced Agility (3), Enhanced Armor +2 (2), Enhanced Strength (3), Fingertip Compartment
. . . . Spurs
. . Cybereyes (1) w/ Flare Compensation, Image Link, Smartlink
. . Muscle Augmentation (2)
. . Muscle Toner (2)
Weapons:
. . Spurs [Unarmed, Acc 6, DV 12P, AP -2]
Starting ¥: 5,000 + (1D6 × 20)¥
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Shadowrun © 2005-2015 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc.
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I also find it interesting how close to Zarzak's ideas I was, Only big difference was swapping skills for attributes
Well, when he said he wanted a focus on cool cyber arm blades (which use unarmed) then it very much pushes you into building a certain way. :D
I'd definitely stick with guns if I was doing it, but cyber arm spurs definitely have that coolness factor.
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For combat, I plan to give him some pistol skills but otherwise focusing in melee. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch since as a security team member(I'm thinking former mid level rapid response team) it's likely he got some kind of physical training. I keep picturing him fighting with some kind of retractable blade hidden in each forearm as his main weapon. I like the idea of some thug charging at him thinking he's about to geek the mage and not noticing the cyber arms until he's got a fist and a blade in his gut.
Melee focused burnt out mage. Mechanically, easy-peasy. Your first decision needs to be what kind of Mage? Aspected, Adept, Mystical Adept, or Mage. From your descriptions I think Adept is out. It comes down to do you summon spirits or not. You've been talking about spellcasting so you're either a Mage, Mystic Adept or a Sorcery Adept. This is what will drive your Magic Priority. Your Metatype Priority is going to be E. I'd put your A in Resources. Leaves you B,C,D. You need at least a C for Mage or Mystic Adept (if you want to summon Spirits). So B skills, D stats. Or if you don't want to summon spirits you can go D Magic, B Skills, C Stats.
Once you have your priorities the rest is "easy". For melee focused characters you can go Monowhip and leave Str a dump stat. Or go cyberlimbs and pump str up in the limb. (You're not going to have enough stat points). You're likely going to have at least one cyberarm for Agility, and possibly Str. Datajack, Smartlink, Cybereyes, bone lacing, Orthoskin, possibly synaptic booster.
Keep your Essence loss at 5 or less, I'd honestly just head straight to 4.9ish worth of Augments YMMV. Buy magic up from 0 to 1 with Karma. Carry on. Mystic Adept math gets a wee more complicated. You probably want less Augmentation and more magic and power points.
Keep in mind in 5th edition Spellcasting tests are Magic + Spellcasting so look for unopposed utility spells. Combat Sense, Heal, Increase Attribute, Increase Reflexes, levitate. Stuff like that. Conjuring a force 4 Spirit is simple enough, and you should be able to shake off the drain so its a skill to consider. Assessing and Counterspelling have been mentioned previously.
You're a magically active melee character. Get a weapon focus and a Mentor spirit. Fetish rules from p. 212 of Street Grimoire are worth a look, so are Reagents.
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I'd put your A in Resources.
I don't think A in resources is necessary, because you don't need to buy reaction enhancers (thats usually ~half your nuyen expense if you do an A in resources). Magic actually helps out quite a bit there. :)
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If they go mystic adept as the 'base' they can grab combat sense using powerpoint. :)
1. That still does not help with the Limit to the defense tests. You can have as big a dice pool as you want, with a low Limit, you're still going to get shredded.
2. At a certain point doing things like this, you just start committing limited resources to shore up a build that is slightly shoddy at the foundations. MysAd is actually a terrible idea here because if you go MysAd, you want to take PP equal to your Magic, and that takes away from your karma. It's really better to just invest in a R1 sustaining focus and play a Limit trick than expand into yet another thing you need to invest in to make good.
Straight Reaction + Intition rolls which would include combat sense the power, are not Subject to limits. So it's a non-issue.
Parrying dodge, are but that's not really here nor there.
(If you have questions See Page 47 of the core- "Tests using a single attribute, or two attributes, do not use limits.")
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1. That still does not help with the Limit to the defense tests. You can have as big a dice pool as you want, with a low Limit, you're still going to get shredded.
Huh? You mean melee defence test one-time bonuses from Parry, Dodge, and Block?
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1. That still does not help with the Limit to the defense tests. You can have as big a dice pool as you want, with a low Limit, you're still going to get shredded.
Huh? You mean melee defence test one-time bonuses from Parry, Dodge, and Block?
See, I was wondering that. Whiskeyjack, Defense tests don't have a limit, normally (unless you parry, dodge or block a melee attack). A low limit is annoying, to be sure, but it's not crippling.
Well, it IS crippling for melee, actually. I was playing around with a build yesterday. It's not very good (skills C is a bad idea, btw), but when I compare it with JmOz01, I notice he has to put a LOT of money in Essence to get STR up in his arms, and base STR and AGI up to decent levels (for the limit and movement, I presume). A ranged character doesn't need that, and can instead put that in, say, Armor. Because with that body, and no armor, you're gonna go squish. Especially if people still think you're a mage. Melee mage with cyberspurs just needs too many things to work, I think. A monowhip might work, but then you still need the movement.
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So, for fun, I made a build based on how I would do this concept ... no melee, but other than that its a burnout mage.
Backstory is the same as the OP's - worked for a corps (Ares), had x happen (shadowrunners, accident, whatever). He lost an arm, and his eyes/ears. Getting them replaced cost him his essence, and his life savings. Ares didn't pay for it (of course) and had an over abundance of meat muscle so let him go. Now he needs to shadowrun to pay the bills.
Overall he's actually pretty solid, at least in combat. Very good dicepools in automatics and heavy weaponry, he can bring the hurt in a firefight. He brings some utility to the team with his spellcasting as well - 12 dice for health spells isn't shabby. He's decently sneaky and perceptive, but not much of a talker (stereotypical street sam).
He's defensive enough to also last a bit. He could use some more armor, but thats not too hard to acquire down the road. He's spent 2.3 essence, so he's got .7 more he can spend before he takes another hit to his magic. He could raise up his basic skills, but thats not a bit karma investment. I sort of like him. :D
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Priority:
A - Attributes
B - Nuyen
C - Magic (Mystic Adept)
D - Skills
E - Metatype (Human)
Attributes (could flip reaction and strength)
Body - 5
Agility - 8 (6 base + 2 from bioware)
Reaction - 4
Strength - 5
Willpower - 5
Logic - 1
Intuition - 5
Charisma - 1
Edge - 3
Essence - 3
Magic - 2 (bought with Karma)
Derived Values:
Mental Limit - 4
Physical Limit - 7
Social Limit - 4 (+2 more from armor?)
Condition Boxes: Physical - 11
Condition Boxes: Stun - 11
Condition Boxes: Overflow - 5
Armor - 16
Positive Qualities
Mentor Spirit - Bear
Agile Defender (probably not necessary)
Restricted Gear (Cyber Grenade Launcher)
Negative Qualities (need 25 points, can play around with this)
Unusual Hair
Corp Limited Sin (Ares)
Combat Junkie
Skills:
Automatics - 6 (SMG Specialization) (+1 from reflex recorder) - Dice Pool: 15 (17)
Heavy Weapons - 6 (Grenade Launchers) - Dice Pool: 14 (16)
Spellcasting - 6 (Health Specialization) (Health Mentor Spirit) - Dice Pool: 8 (12)
Perception - 1 (+3 for audio/visual from cyber) - Dice Pool: 6 (9)
Sneaking - 2 <-- bought with karma --> - Dice Pool: 10
Etiquette - 1 <-- bought with karma --> - Dice Pool: 2
Knowledge Skills:
English - N
Magic Theory (Academic) - 3
Ares Security (Corp) - 4
Japanese (Language) - 2
Combat Trids (Interest) - 3
Tradition: Egyptian (because why not! :D But really, any INT+Will tradition works)
Spells:
Increase Reflexes
Increase X (agility, strength, whatever)
Heal
Levitate
Some Combat Spell (whatever you want, really - this is just for fun)
PowerPoints:
Combat Sense (II) - costs 1 point
Karma Breakdown:
32 karma remaining after qualities
15 Karma = Magic 2
5 Karma = 1 PowerPoint
6 Karma = Sneaking 2
2 Karma = Etiquette 1
2 Karma = Sustaining Focus I
2 Karma = Sustaining Focus 1
0 Karma remaining
Contacts:
Ares Headhunter - 2 connection, 1 loyalty
Gear:
Fake SIN (IV)
Fake License (IV) - Firearms
Fake License (IV) - Magic
Low Lifestyle (1 month)
Certified Credstick (Silver)
Datajack
CyberEyes (III)
Image Link, Camera, Smartlink, Thermographic Vision, Low-Light Vision, Vision Magnification, Vision Enhancement (III)
CyberEars (II)
Sound Link, Damper, Spatial Recognizer, Select Sound Filter (II), Audio Enhancement (III)
Full Obvious Cyberarm (L)
Base Agility 6, Base Strength 6
Cyber Grenade Launcher, 10 grenades of varying type
Muscle Toner (II)
Reflex Recorder (Automatics)
Sustaining Focus (Health) (I)
Sustaining Focus (Health) (I)
Reagent - 100x Dram
Suzuki Mirage
Meta Link - burner commlink
Transys Avalon w/Sim Module
AR Gloves
Berwick Suit
Argentum Coat
Forearm Guards
Ares Sigma Six - SMG from Gun Heaven 3
Ammo x100
Ares Alpha - Assault Rifle
Ammo x100
Grenades x10
Ares Crusader II - Machine Pistol
Ammo x100
Medkit (Rating IV)
~5000 nuyen left to play with
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Defense isn't subject to Limit? Huh. The more you know. Need to remind myself to tell my GM that.
At any rate, eh, Combat Sense 1 with a PP is kind of a waste IMO. But I never take just 1 with PP. I like as many dodging dice as I can get my hands on.
I do think it's a waste to not max PP if you go MysAd because you'll never really have the chance to max that if not at chargen and if you go that route it is always worth maxing it out.
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At any rate, eh, Combat Sense 1 with a PP is kind of a waste IMO. But I never take just 1 with PP. I like as many dodging dice as I can get my hands on.
Combat Sense 1 triggers the "always get a perception to avoid surprise" clause. It is supreme value.
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At any rate, eh, Combat Sense 1 with a PP is kind of a waste IMO. But I never take just 1 with PP. I like as many dodging dice as I can get my hands on.
Combat Sense 1 triggers the "always get a perception to avoid surprise" clause. It is supreme value.
Yes I am aware of that. My point is I rarely take just 1 because +1 die to defense isn't that great. That comes up for me much more frequently than the perception test (somehow in my games we are consistently the ambushes rather than the ambushed).
I like to throw as many dice as possible in my free action defense tests. Buying CS1 with PP isn't as valuable to me as sustaining a Limit-played CS spell with a F1 focus which is almost guaranteed to get more than 1 hit. Your only real worry there is BC and wards, which, the latter at least you can try to detect. But for day to day "carry" I'd say it's a better investment unless you buy more than CS 1 with PP. unless of course you very frequently deal with BC and wards.
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I'm not trying to say that the combat sense thing is a great idea, I think it could work, but in general i don't really like mystic adept. I do just want to say that the cyberarm stat dump trick can work if you go about it correctly. Is it perfect? Of course not there are plenty of risks. But for the concept lossing an arm is story wise something people can understand, it can be purely psychological, as to why the character was kicked out.
Burning is something I find to be somewhat self defeating, your giving up a pile of Karma whenever you go from magic 6 to magic 5. But the cyberlimb trick can be worth it.
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I'm not trying to say that the combat sense thing is a great idea, I think it could work, but in general i don't really like mystic adept. I do just want to say that the cyberarm stat dump trick can work if you go about it correctly. Is it perfect? Of course not there are plenty of risks. But for the concept lossing an arm is story wise something people can understand, it can be purely psychological, as to why the character was kicked out.
Burning is something I find to be somewhat self defeating, your giving up a pile of Karma whenever you go from magic 6 to magic 5. But the cyberlimb trick can be worth it.
You'd only ever start at Magic 6 if you plan to just drop 1 point of essence; it can sometimes be worth it.
In this instance the highest you'd ever want to start is magic Priority C (so you can be a full magician or mystic adept).
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Even at Priority C (AFB so don't know how many MAG points that gives) you still have to be careful about MAG reduction due to ESS loss though.
Say you're MAG 3 and ESS 6. You take some ware and drop to ESS 5.1. My reading is you also drop to MAG 2. Take a little more ware and you're at ESS 4.0. Now you have MAG 1. Any more ESS loss, even .1, without raising MAG and you hit MAG 0 and burn out. Right?
Of course my assumption is you start at say MAG 3 from priority, buy it up a little with Special Attribute Points, then drop it down with ware.
If this assumption is wrong then by all means please correct me.
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Even at Priority C (AFB so don't know how many MAG points that gives) you still have to be careful about MAG reduction due to ESS loss though.
Say you're MAG 3 and ESS 6. You take some ware and drop to ESS 5.1. My reading is you also drop to MAG 2. Take a little more ware and you're at ESS 4.0. Now you have MAG 1. Any more ESS loss, even .1, without raising MAG and you hit MAG 0 and burn out. Right?
Of course my assumption is you start at say MAG 3 from priority, buy it up a little with Special Attribute Points, then drop it down with ware.
If this assumption is wrong then by all means please correct me.
Thats actually not quite correct - the details are on page 278.
There are a few factors here:
Essence
Current Magic Rating
Maximum Magic Rating
Your essence is simple: It starts at 6 and can go down. For every point of essence you lose, you reduce both your current magic rating and your maximum magic rating.
Maximum Magic Rating is 6+Initiation level (unless you take exceptional attribute, then its 7+initiation level). So at Chargen its effectively 6.
Your current Magic Rating is whatever your Magic attribute starts at (so 3, or 5, or 6, or whatever).
If your current Magic Rating is reduced to 0 you can't cast spells until you buy it back to a positive number. You are not burned out.
If your maximum magic Rating is reduced to 0 you are burned out. So no starting with 5.1 essence worth of cyber.
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What this means at Chargen:
Say you start with Priority C in magic (this gives you Magic 3):
Essence = 6
Maximum Magic = 6
Current Magic = 3
Say you then take 3.5 essence worth of Cyber
Essence = 2
Maximum Magic = 2
Current Magic = 0 (you can't have a negative attribute score).
You can then buy your Current Magic back up to 2 points for 15 karma (5 karma for 0->1, 10 karma for 1->2). Your magic cap is now 2 until you initiate.
:)
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Yep. You only fully burn out when your max magic hits zero.
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Defense isn't subject to Limit? Huh. The more you know. Need to remind myself to tell my GM that.
At any rate, eh, Combat Sense 1 with a PP is kind of a waste IMO. But I never take just 1 with PP. I like as many dodging dice as I can get my hands on.
I do think it's a waste to not max PP if you go MysAd because you'll never really have the chance to max that if not at chargen and if you go that route it is always worth maxing it out.
P. 47 "Note that limits generally only apply to tests involving a dice pool derived from a skill and an attribute.
Tests using a single attribute, or two attributes, do not use limits."
Not many tests using just one or two stats, but there you go.
And not maxing out PP at Chargen with a Mysad is silly. It's 5 karma per PP at chargen and after that you have to initiate to get a PP. I'm really at a loss to come up with what else would be better than 1 PP for 5 Karma.
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I'd put your A in Resources.
I don't think A in resources is necessary, because you don't need to buy reaction enhancers (thats usually ~half your nuyen expense if you do an A in resources). Magic actually helps out quite a bit there. :)
Sustaining focus is cheaper, but shut down by Background Count or similar. Sustaining your own spell isn't bad if you can regularly beat the drain and have focus concentration. But for a combat character going first and getting multiple actions is pretty much what you do. Isn't it? *shrug* hate to get shut down, or have to spend your first action buffing up. Depends on your table. Minor spoiler if your GM says anything about "running missions" or "based in Chicago." just get the 'ware and move on.
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Sustaining focus is cheaper, but shut down by Background Count or similar. Sustaining your own spell isn't bad if you can regularly beat the drain and have focus concentration. But for a combat character going first and getting multiple actions is pretty much what you do. Isn't it? *shrug* hate to get shut down, or have to spend your first action buffing up. Depends on your table. Minor spoiler if your GM says anything about "running missions" or "based in Chicago." just get the 'ware and move on.
I understand the viewpoint, but I think its a little silly. Would you tell a mage not to rely on sustaining increase reflexes due to background count? I've seen recommendations to go mystic adept for the powerpoints to get imp reflexes there, but never seen it not recommended to sustain improved reflexes for a dedicated mage. One way to think of this character concept is a mage (he'll have spells he can cast well) who just happens to sacrifice some mage-ing ability to also be tough and dish out the physical damage.
*edit* There's also the concern that if you have a burnout mage who goes the full wireless reflex route (which needs priority A in resources) then you're going to be sacrificing even more on skills or stats to keep the magic ability. I think the only way this concept can work is if you use the fact that you're a street sam with magic to its fullest advantage.
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With a well built and focused magic build a low background count really is not that big a deal. Espically if you know its coming, pushing a casting pool into the 18 to the low 20 range is really not that hard, it just takes some thinking. The stupid spirit of man sustaining spell trick can basicly solve whatever problem you have relating to low background count. If you decied to use that method I'd recommend the Black Magic Tradition for it. Really what gets folks most when building casters is trying to do to much. Astral Combat is most often a trap.
The single greatest complaint I have agianst Priority is the way is screws over aspected magic. Aspected Magic really saves you so much grief.
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Yeah, aspected is only worth it in Point Buy. Sorcerers in Priority get screwed over by having to spend their limited allocation of starting Karma to have any spells. The background count issue brings up something I have said before - SR5's flat penalties encourage min-maxing, since they are the same for weaker characters (who get crippled) as they are for stronger characters (who can still be effective).
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I understand the viewpoint, but I think its a little silly. Would you tell a mage not to rely on sustaining increase reflexes due to background count? I've seen recommendations to go mystic adept for the powerpoints to get imp reflexes there, but never seen it not recommended to sustain improved reflexes for a dedicated mage. One way to think of this character concept is a mage (he'll have spells he can cast well) who just happens to sacrifice some mage-ing ability to also be tough and dish out the physical damage.
*edit* There's also the concern that if you have a burnout mage who goes the full wireless reflex route (which needs priority A in resources) then you're going to be sacrificing even more on skills or stats to keep the magic ability. I think the only way this concept can work is if you use the fact that you're a street sam with magic to its fullest advantage.
Mages have a lot more options to get and keep that Increase Reflexes if they do hit a background count. They can just cast it at full force instead, eating the (stun) drain and the -2 (or less) pool penalty. They can summon a high force spirit to cast it for them. Or get quickening at some point and cast it through there.
This character can't do that though - or at least, not cost-effectively - since his Magic is too low to cast it at high force, his drain pool is too low to safely absorb the Physical drain from said high force, he can't summon high force spirits needed to cast it, and quickening is relatively very expensive for this character (since he can't use it as well as a pure caster).
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A few things on my build:
First my lap top lit on fire last night so can't make any changes right now
second: I would swap the Melee combat for Unarmed with a spec in cyber and drop pistols to take firearms
Gear wise get a good light pistol for the slide
The reason for the one alchemy spell is that at Magic 2 you are only allowed 4 spells and you get 5 for free. I figure being able to trigger a almost harmless fireball preparation might be useful...
You should have enough money for some good armor and gear
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Mages have a lot more options to get and keep that Increase Reflexes if they do hit a background count. They can just cast it at full force instead, eating the (stun) drain and the -2 (or less) pool penalty. They can summon a high force spirit to cast it for them. Or get quickening at some point and cast it through there.
This character can't do that though - or at least, not cost-effectively - since his Magic is too low to cast it at high force, his drain pool is too low to safely absorb the Physical drain from said high force, he can't summon high force spirits needed to cast it, and quickening is relatively very expensive for this character (since he can't use it as well as a pure caster).
You can pretty easily get 10 dice for drain - thats not much less than an optimized full mage. You can also pretty easily get 12 dice for health spells - which is about the same as a magic 6 / spellcasting 6 character who isn't specializing in health spells. No summoning though, thats true.
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Mages have a lot more options to get and keep that Increase Reflexes if they do hit a background count. They can just cast it at full force instead, eating the (stun) drain and the -2 (or less) pool penalty. They can summon a high force spirit to cast it for them. Or get quickening at some point and cast it through there.
This character can't do that though - or at least, not cost-effectively - since his Magic is too low to cast it at high force, his drain pool is too low to safely absorb the Physical drain from said high force, he can't summon high force spirits needed to cast it, and quickening is relatively very expensive for this character (since he can't use it as well as a pure caster).
You can pretty easily get 10 dice for drain - thats not much less than an optimized full mage. You can also pretty easily get 12 dice for health spells - which is about the same as a magic 6 / spellcasting 6 character who isn't specializing in health spells. No summoning though, thats true.
Getting yourself to 10 drain is possible, yes, but more costly then a mage (because you need other stats more than a mage). Getting óver 10 dice is pretty much impossible for you. Mages can go over at chargen - and the difference between 10 and, say 13 is quite big - and they can get much higher later on (for a mage, Centering plus perhaps a focus, and Increased [Stat], are fairly doable in the midgame. For you it's a massive expense).
Getting 12 dice for health spells, maybe if you specialize. With 6 skill, a specialization and a Mentor you'd be on par with a non-health Mage. Until he gets a Power Focus - and he will, perhaps even at chargen. You can get a Power Focus too, but again, the relative cost is much higher (it eats into your cyber budget, and only grants a bonus on a small part of your skillset, while it improves the whole skillset of a mage). You could get a Spell Focus too, of course, but then you'd be completely limited to Health. In fact, the mage gets that bonus pretty much for free - he's going to get that Power Focus regardless to boost his Combat/Illusion/Manipulation, Summoning and Binding anyway.
The thing is, when a mage improves his Magical things - drain, skill, dice pool through foci - it improves pretty much everything he does. When this character does the same, he improves a small part of his skillset - he attacks with weapons and uses chrome for boosts and such, and the magical improvement just help the small parts that augment that. But both characters pay the same. So magical improvements are much worse, relatively.
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A few thoughts on the posted build:
1. Two mental attributes at 1 can/will be really brutal. Part of that is GM dependent, but it's not something I'd be anxious to try.
2. You don't need that many dice for grenade launchers. Most of the time it's a Threshold 3 test. 13 dice will hit that ~86% of the time. This could free up some skill points to let you spend your starting karma on something more efficient than rank 1 skills.
3. Cyberlimbs and Muscle Toner aren't really a great combination since they don't compliment one another. If you're going with SMGs you can just go with a single limb and save yourself some money and attribute points.
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Getting yourself to 10 drain is possible, yes, but more costly then a mage (because you need other stats more than a mage). Getting óver 10 dice is pretty much impossible for you. Mages can go over at chargen - and the difference between 10 and, say 13 is quite big - and they can get much higher later on (for a mage, Centering plus perhaps a focus, and Increased [Stat], are fairly doable in the midgame. For you it's a massive expense).
Getting 12 dice for health spells, maybe if you specialize. With 6 skill, a specialization and a Mentor you'd be on par with a non-health Mage. Until he gets a Power Focus - and he will, perhaps even at chargen. You can get a Power Focus too, but again, the relative cost is much higher (it eats into your cyber budget, and only grants a bonus on a small part of your skillset, while it improves the whole skillset of a mage). You could get a Spell Focus too, of course, but then you'd be completely limited to Health. In fact, the mage gets that bonus pretty much for free - he's going to get that Power Focus regardless to boost his Combat/Illusion/Manipulation, Summoning and Binding anyway.
The thing is, when a mage improves his Magical things - drain, skill, dice pool through foci - it improves pretty much everything he does. When this character does the same, he improves a small part of his skillset - he attacks with weapons and uses chrome for boosts and such, and the magical improvement just help the small parts that augment that. But both characters pay the same. So magical improvements are much worse, relatively.
If you take a Will+Intuition tradition you'd want those stats decent/high anyways for a street sam type of character (5 will is nice, and intuition of course helps reflexes). But other than that you're right - the opportunity cost of advancing your magic is higher for a burnout character than the opportunity cost for a mage.
But thats not something that can really be avoided with this character concept, I think. A cyber mage type of character is going to be mechanically worse than a street sam, and mechanically worse than a full mage. But such a character can still be viable and a valuable addition on runs.
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A few thoughts on the posted build:
1. Two mental attributes at 1 can/will be really brutal. Part of that is GM dependent, but it's not something I'd be anxious to try.
2. You don't need that many dice for grenade launchers. Most of the time it's a Threshold 3 test. 13 dice will hit that ~86% of the time. This could free up some skill points to let you spend your starting karma on something more efficient than rank 1 skills.
3. Cyberlimbs and Muscle Toner aren't really a great combination since they don't compliment one another. If you're going with SMGs you can just go with a single limb and save yourself some money and attribute points.
If you're referring to the sample build I posted:
1: Logic 1 and Charisma 1 don't actually hurt that much. You're not going to be doing anything logic based, really, and the most you might do for charisma is an etiquette check ... and honestly charisma 1 vs charisma 2 doesn't matter overly much for that if you're not a face.
2: For grenade launchers: 86% of the time doesn't seem that great, given that a grenade should only be used in a "if this doesn't work we're all going to die' sort of situation. But, thats just my opinion.
3: He only has one cyberlimb :p But yes, generally not a great combo ... cyberlimbs are always tricky to do well, imo.
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The mental attribute thing is more of a roleplaying thing than it is a mechanical thing. There are enough threads on this topic in the forums to let me know that there is a lot of variation amongst players and GMs on this topic, but (for me) roleplaying a Logic 1 character means essentially never coming up with a good idea, which would be pretty boring.
You can't eliminate risk, but you can manage it. Everyone needs to figure out what level of risk/failure they're comfortable with. For my Edge 5 character, it's around 15%, which is why I used 13 dice as my starting point--your lower Edge may impact this number, but a big part of it is simply what your risk tolerance is. You have to weigh the cost of reducing that versus resource allocation elsewhere (notably spending karma on low-rank skills). With 18 dice and an Accuracy of 6, you are more likely to waste hits than you are to miss your Threshold, which suggests an inefficiency in allocation.
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If you're referring to the sample build I posted:
1: Logic 1 and Charisma 1 don't actually hurt that much. You're not going to be doing anything logic based, really, and the most you might do for charisma is an etiquette check ... and honestly charisma 1 vs charisma 2 doesn't matter overly much for that if you're not a face.
2: For grenade launchers: 86% of the time doesn't seem that great, given that a grenade should only be used in a "if this doesn't work we're all going to die' sort of situation. But, thats just my opinion.
3: He only has one cyberlimb :p But yes, generally not a great combo ... cyberlimbs are always tricky to do well, imo.
1: CHA/LOG 1 vs 2 doesn't matter much mechanically, but it does matter a lot. Many GM's expect you to roleplay that CHA/LOG 1, because, well, that's your character, and 1 is on the very edge of playability. And you have two such stats.
Plus, it's the difference between a 33% chance to get a hit and a 0%, for defaulted skills.
2: If you're in a "this has to work or we die" situation, you can use Edge. Otherwise 86% is pretty good odds; it's better then a lot of other "oh crap" options. Plus, if you fail by 1, it still lands close by.
If you take a Will+Intuition tradition you'd want those stats decent/high anyways for a street sam type of character (5 will is nice, and intuition of course helps reflexes). But other than that you're right - the opportunity cost of advancing your magic is higher for a burnout character than the opportunity cost for a mage.
But thats not something that can really be avoided with this character concept, I think. A cyber mage type of character is going to be mechanically worse than a street sam, and mechanically worse than a full mage. But such a character can still be viable and a valuable addition on runs.
My remarks were in the context of the point on the choice of initiative booster. My point was that this character will probably be better off with a 'Ware-based initiative booster, because unlike a mage he doesn't have many options when he hits a background count (because a mage can much easier compensate for that BG count, when it comes to getting his initiative booster back up).
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My remarks were in the context of the point on the choice of initiative booster. My point was that this character will probably be better off with a 'Ware-based initiative booster, because unlike a mage he doesn't have many options when he hits a background count (because a mage can much easier compensate for that BG count, when it comes to getting his initiative booster back up).
My thoughts are that then this requires taking Resources A, like any other street sam (otherwise there's no way you can afford the 'ware). You'll still need your usual street sam skills and stats ... but you also need a C in magic (unless you settle for physical adept/just focused mage, and all of the limitations those entail). So your priorities would, by necessity with that, be A Resources, C Magic, and E Metatype.
You can't go with D attributes, because then you'd need to rely on sustained health spells for your attributes - and if the whole concern is sustaining a spell then thats no good.
So you then become a street sam with fewer skills/less edge, and the magic you'd be able to take isn't directly benefiting your street sam role ... that seems less optimal to me, but just my opinion. :)
1: CHA/LOG 1 vs 2 doesn't matter much mechanically, but it does matter a lot. Many GM's expect you to roleplay that CHA/LOG 1, because, well, that's your character, and 1 is on the very edge of playability. And you have two such stats.
Plus, it's the difference between a 33% chance to get a hit and a 0%, for defaulted skills.
The problem is that I'm not sure what a logic of 1 "means", or what a logic of 2 "means". Same with charisma. Take humans, for example: we can have logic 1-6, or an exceptional 7. So 7 means you are very gifted, 6 would mean the top end of the bell curve.
So does that mean a '3' is average? But if thats the case, a '2' is still below average, still not really clever enough to come up with things. Does a '1' go into mentally deficient territory, or just 'not too clever'?
Same thing with Charisma: how 'uncouth' is a 1? Is it 'worse manners than a wild dog' or is it 'makes inappropriate comments and has trouble relating to people'?
*edit* To add to attributes - if 3 is 'average', to be an average person requires a C in attributes with all points spread evenly across everything.
*edit2* If you take the OP's concept, for instance, of a fired low-level corps security guy ... one might expect the stereotypical corps security guy to not be too clever and to be somewhat uncouth. Since there's no really 'official' explanation for the difference between a 1 and a 2 in a stat, I would think that a 1 would RP that archetype just fine.
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The mental attribute thing is more of a roleplaying thing than it is a mechanical thing. There are enough threads on this topic in the forums to let me know that there is a lot of variation amongst players and GMs on this topic, but (for me) roleplaying a Logic 1 character means essentially never coming up with a good idea, which would be pretty boring.
Not to derail on this subject, but while Attributes of 1 are the minimum, they are still playable. There's not a rule that you start at 1 and have to raise it to at least a 2, even if most people do. LOG 1 certainly is not "never comes up with a good idea." IRL there are plenty of people at borderline intellectual functioning, which I posit is probably worse than LOG 1 as represented in the system, who are incredibly creative, insightful and thoughtful individuals. At the same time, the system doesn't represent IRL, but I don't think that the player of a LOG 1 character is estopped from having good ideas just because, functionally, LOG might track to IQ in some way.
This is a bit of a point where the system representing characters breaks down a bit. It's easy enough to imagine STR 1 as a 98-pound weakling or BOD 1 as someone who is largely in poor health, or AGI 1 as a complete and utter klutz or perhaps someone with essential tremor that affects their ability to aim or handle objects effectively, but it's much harder to quantify low mental attributes in a way that isn't sort of offensive.
And, as has been brought up in other threads, you can have a valid LOG 1 character who also has Hacking 6. It's not optimized, but the system certainly allows it, even if it might cause some verisimilitude confusion. Best to remember the system is not the setting in this case. You might not be able to roll well with LOG 1 but I think an ST who doesn't allow you to even present ideas IC is kind of a dick.
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Mages have a lot more options to get and keep that Increase Reflexes if they do hit a background count. They can just cast it at full force instead, eating the (stun) drain and the -2 (or less) pool penalty. They can summon a high force spirit to cast it for them. Or get quickening at some point and cast it through there.
This character can't do that though - or at least, not cost-effectively - since his Magic is too low to cast it at high force, his drain pool is too low to safely absorb the Physical drain from said high force, he can't summon high force spirits needed to cast it, and quickening is relatively very expensive for this character (since he can't use it as well as a pure caster).
If the OP is looking at a 5 Magic "burn out" then, yes lots of options. As Top Dog says, a magic 1 or 2 character is more limited. You're taking physical drain for casting something that is essential to your combat function, so you can't be so casual about wards, background counts, ect that force repeated casting. If you hand off the spell sustaining to a spirit or a focus you risk losing the buff to a relatively weak attack. A Mage with magic 6 and crap initiative will still be able to slowly do what mages do. (Utility, zot spirits, AOEIWINButtons.) Just duck until its your turn. A Magic 1 burn out really doesn't do those other magic things all that well. Not saying impossible, just saying know your table.
It's also going to be a fairly high opportunity cost to get 10 dice of drain stats. With as many directions as this build is pulled, tossing out 5 on Willpower and Whatever isn't a casual thing. It'll leave you with a lot of 1's and 2's to overcome.
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The mental attribute thing is more of a roleplaying thing than it is a mechanical thing. There are enough threads on this topic in the forums to let me know that there is a lot of variation amongst players and GMs on this topic, but (for me) roleplaying a Logic 1 character means essentially never coming up with a good idea, which would be pretty boring.
Not to derail on this subject, but while Attributes of 1 are the minimum, they are still playable. There's not a rule that you start at 1 and have to raise it to at least a 2, even if most people do. LOG 1 certainly is not "never comes up with a good idea." IRL there are plenty of people at borderline intellectual functioning, which I posit is probably worse than LOG 1 as represented in the system, who are incredibly creative, insightful and thoughtful individuals. At the same time, the system doesn't represent IRL, but I don't think that the player of a LOG 1 character is estopped from having good ideas just because, functionally, LOG might track to IQ in some way.
This is a bit of a point where the system representing characters breaks down a bit. It's easy enough to imagine STR 1 as a 98-pound weakling or BOD 1 as someone who is largely in poor health, or AGI 1 as a complete and utter klutz or perhaps someone with essential tremor that affects their ability to aim or handle objects effectively, but it's much harder to quantify low mental attributes in a way that isn't sort of offensive.
And, as has been brought up in other threads, you can have a valid LOG 1 character who also has Hacking 6. It's not optimized, but the system certainly allows it, even if it might cause some verisimilitude confusion. Best to remember the system is not the setting in this case. You might not be able to roll well with LOG 1 but I think an ST who doesn't allow you to even present ideas IC is kind of a dick.
1 Logic = 6th grade education. Pretty easy to RP. Certainly doesn't indicate any kind of mental handicap, there are qualities for that. Logic is mostly book learning in Shadowrun, Academic and Technical skills. Doesn't stop you from having good ideas, you just can't draw up the blueprints.
For the most part Jr. High School students or older folks are good examples of 1 stats, often multiple 1 stats, and are able to get through day to day life without significant hardship. Given how strongly Shadowrun mechanically encourages specialization tossing in "free" negative qualities for low stats is unnecessary. You'll have low limits, movement, encumbrance, Memory, Judge intentions, Composure, initiative, Defense pool, Soak, Contacts, Knowledge skills, or whatever for the low stats. Isn't that punishment enough? :'(
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Mages have a lot more options to get and keep that Increase Reflexes if they do hit a background count. They can just cast it at full force instead, eating the (stun) drain and the -2 (or less) pool penalty. They can summon a high force spirit to cast it for them. Or get quickening at some point and cast it through there.
This character can't do that though - or at least, not cost-effectively - since his Magic is too low to cast it at high force, his drain pool is too low to safely absorb the Physical drain from said high force, he can't summon high force spirits needed to cast it, and quickening is relatively very expensive for this character (since he can't use it as well as a pure caster).
If the OP is looking at a 5 Magic "burn out" then, yes lots of options. As Top Dog says, a magic 1 or 2 character is more limited. You're taking physical drain for casting something that is essential to your combat function, so you can't be so casual about wards, background counts, ect that force repeated casting. If you hand off the spell sustaining to a spirit or a focus you risk losing the buff to a relatively weak attack. A Mage with magic 6 and crap initiative will still be able to slowly do what mages do. (Utility, zot spirits, AOEIWINButtons.) Just duck until its your turn. A Magic 1 burn out really doesn't do those other magic things all that well. Not saying impossible, just saying know your table.
It's also going to be a fairly high opportunity cost to get 10 dice of drain stats. With as many directions as this build is pulled, tossing out 5 on Willpower and Whatever isn't a casual thing. It'll leave you with a lot of 1's and 2's to overcome.
If you do attributes in priority A then you can easily get 5 in will and intuition (which are both useful to a street sam) with only taking 1's in logic and charisma (useless for you). :) Then you have 10 drain dice - its also easy to get 12 dice to throw for health spells.
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The mental attribute thing is more of a roleplaying thing than it is a mechanical thing. There are enough threads on this topic in the forums to let me know that there is a lot of variation amongst players and GMs on this topic, but (for me) roleplaying a Logic 1 character means essentially never coming up with a good idea, which would be pretty boring.
Not to derail on this subject, but while Attributes of 1 are the minimum, they are still playable. There's not a rule that you start at 1 and have to raise it to at least a 2, even if most people do. LOG 1 certainly is not "never comes up with a good idea." IRL there are plenty of people at borderline intellectual functioning, which I posit is probably worse than LOG 1 as represented in the system, who are incredibly creative, insightful and thoughtful individuals. At the same time, the system doesn't represent IRL, but I don't think that the player of a LOG 1 character is estopped from having good ideas just because, functionally, LOG might track to IQ in some way.
This is a bit of a point where the system representing characters breaks down a bit. It's easy enough to imagine STR 1 as a 98-pound weakling or BOD 1 as someone who is largely in poor health, or AGI 1 as a complete and utter klutz or perhaps someone with essential tremor that affects their ability to aim or handle objects effectively, but it's much harder to quantify low mental attributes in a way that isn't sort of offensive.
And, as has been brought up in other threads, you can have a valid LOG 1 character who also has Hacking 6. It's not optimized, but the system certainly allows it, even if it might cause some verisimilitude confusion. Best to remember the system is not the setting in this case. You might not be able to roll well with LOG 1 but I think an ST who doesn't allow you to even present ideas IC is kind of a dick.
1 Logic = 6th grade education. Pretty easy to RP. Certainly doesn't indicate any kind of mental handicap, there are qualities for that. Logic is mostly book learning in Shadowrun, Academic and Technical skills. Doesn't stop you from having good ideas, you just can't draw up the blueprints.
For the most part Jr. High School students or older folks are good examples of 1 stats, often multiple 1 stats, and are able to get through day to day life without significant hardship. Given how strongly Shadowrun mechanically encourages specialization tossing in "free" negative qualities for low stats is unnecessary. You'll have low limits, movement, encumbrance, Memory, Judge intentions, Composure, initiative, Defense pool, Soak, Contacts, Knowledge skills, or whatever for the low stats. Isn't that punishment enough? :'(
I'll point out that the average 6th grader is, by definition, a moron.
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Yeah, the point is that 5 WIL is otherwise pretty bad for a sam. All it's doing is giving you another stun box and a die or two against certain spells, which a full mage should be counterspelling anyway.
I wouldn't rush to say CHA is useless to a sam. Intimidation is CHA-based, after all.
LOG, yeah, dump it.
I'll point out that the average 6th grader is, by definition, a moron.
Though whether that is due to only being about halfway through formal education or being 11-12, immature, and pubescent hormonal is a whole separate issue.
IRL intelligence (and IQ) is based on a lot more than raw processing power or fund of knowledge and involves things like insight, deduction ability, and judgment, which aren't strictly covered (or possibly even considered) by what most people think about when they hear IQ, and which I wouldn't say are strictly covered by LOG in this game either. Imperfect simulation, etc.
There are some pretty damn smart 6th graders in the world, but you can't smart your way out of being 11-12, immature, and pubescent hormonal.
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I'll point out that the average 6th grader is, by definition, a moron.
Yes, but you're looking at the whole package that is a 6th grader. Shadowrun Logic is technical and academic skills. You can score a 10 on the Wonderlic test and still be an NFL caliber player.
(10 on the Wonderlic = "literate" if you're wondering)
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If you do attributes in priority A then you can easily get 5 in will and intuition (which are both useful to a street sam) with only taking 1's in logic and charisma (useless for you). :) Then you have 10 drain dice - its also easy to get 12 dice to throw for health spells.
Dependent on Magic tradition, and willing to go with spells to boost initiative. But, yes if you're a Buddhist (or whatever) tradition you can get to 10 if you're willing to go with Resources B, Magic C, Skills D. 'dat Skills D is brutal for a character with as many skill wants as the OP seems to have. Pistol, Melee, plus Magic skills.
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I'll point out that the average 6th grader is, by definition, a moron.
Yes, but you're looking at the whole package that is a 6th grader. Shadowrun Logic is technical and academic skills. You can score a 10 on the Wonderlic test and still be an NFL caliber player.
(10 on the Wonderlic = "literate" if you're wondering)
There are many sixth graders and NFL players I would not trust with automatic weapons.
But like I said originally, this is something that varies tremendously by table, so it's really up to the op's GM. Going back to the character sheet a few pages back, I'm certain that there's a better way of spending karma. For example, if we change skills to:
Automatics 6 (+2)
Heavy Weapons 4 (+2)
Spellcasting 6 (+2)
Perception 1
Sneaking 1 (+2) - taking the Urban specialization to offset the loss in Agility
That leaves us with no Etiquette, which may or may not be a deal-breaker for session 1, but let's assume your character keeps his mouth shut and buys it with earned karma once the game begins. I'd also recommend dropping some points from Agility and going solely with the cyberarm.
So now your 32 karma would look like
15 +2 Magic
10 2 PP
2 Sustaining Focus 1
4 qi focus 2 (Motion Sense)
Two power points could give you Improved Reflexes and Combat Sense, getting around the Background Count problem of using a focus.
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But like I said originally, this is something that varies tremendously by table, so it's really up to the op's GM. Going back to the character sheet a few pages back, I'm certain that there's a better way of spending karma. For example, if we change skills to:
Automatics 6 (+2)
Heavy Weapons 4 (+2)
Spellcasting 6 (+2)
Perception 1
Sneaking 1 (+2) - taking the Urban specialization to offset the loss in Agility
That leaves us with no Etiquette, which may or may not be a deal-breaker for session 1, but let's assume your character keeps his mouth shut and buys it with earned karma once the game begins. I'd also recommend dropping some points from Agility and going solely with the cyberarm.
So now your 32 karma would look like
15 +2 Magic
10 2 PP
2 Sustaining Focus 1
4 qi focus 2 (Motion Sense)
Two power points could give you Improved Reflexes and Combat Sense, getting around the Background Count problem of using a focus.
I was also thinking about it ... if you drop the agile defender quality (3 karma) and 1 point in sneaking that was bought with karma (4 karma) that gives 7 more karma ... enough for the 2nd powerpoint. So you can then get improved reflexes if you'd really like, and you're only spending 4 karma on skills.
Of course you can then play around with skills more (perhaps drop 2 points in heavy weapons as you suggest).
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There are many sixth graders and NFL players I would not trust with automatic weapons.
I lol'd. True story.
A slightly different way of doing a similar thing. Nuyen and Karma deliberately unspent for the OP to customize. Grenades, Foci, Reagents, More Augments, A car, Lifestyle, ect. ect. 29 Karma left over as well if you take the full -25 from negative qualities. So patch up low stats or skills, whatever. Mentor spirit is highly encouraged.
Low Move for a melee character so think of the Spurs as a "finishing move", that accuracy is a bitch though. You'll be shooting most of the way in. IMO Automatics and Monowhips are mechanically better, but the OP said "Pistols" and Stabbing so...
Also, personally, I'd go with Fetishes on all but the Heal spell. Cast everything at force 4ish for minimum drain. Not sure how the OP feels about carting around 4 pairs of chicken feet. Spell list would be shuffled around a bit depending on Mentor Spirit. Spellcasting specialization would be an early pick up. Bringing casting pool to 10 dice for the chosen buff spells. Overall investment in Magic is moderate. "C" Priority, 30 Karma, 12 Skill points, 5 Group points. You're getting a couple moderate buffs from spells, Spirits, and counterspells.
Nuyen left for Chargen 103,755. So lots.
Karma Spent 21
Magic from 0 to 1.
Focus Concentration 4
== Priorities ==
Metatype: E - Human
Attributes: D - 14 Attributes
Special: C - Adept, Magician, or Technomancer
Skills: B - 36 Skills/5 Skill Groups
Resources: A - 450,000¥
== Attributes ==
BOD: 3
AGI: 3
REA: 5
STR: 1
CHA: 1
INT: 5
LOG: 1
WIL: 3
EDG: 3
MAG: 1
== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 1.66
Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Rigger Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Astral Initiative: 10 + 2d6
Matrix AR Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Matrix Cold Initiative: 5 + DP + 3d6
Matrix Hot Initiative: 5 + DP + 4d6
Physical Damage Track: 11
Stun Damage Track: 10
== Limits ==
Physical: 4
Mental: 4
Social: 3
Mortimer of London: Argentum Coat [+1] (Must be visible)
Mortimer of London: Berwick Suit [+1] (Must be visible)
Astral: 4
== Active Skills ==
Counterspelling : 5 Pool: 6
Pistols : 6 [Semi-Automatics] Pool: 7 (9)
Ritual Spellcasting : 5 Pool: 6
Sneaking : 6 [Urban] Pool: 7 (9)
Spellcasting : 5 Pool: 6
Summoning : 6 Pool: 7
Perception : 2 [Visual] Pool: 7 (9)
Unarmed Combat : 6 [Cyber Implants] Pool: 7 (9)
Assensing : 6 Pool: 11
(Note Group Skill Sorcery 5)
== Qualities ==
Magician
Focus Concentration 4
== Spells ==
Tradition: Any Int, Resist Drain with WIL + INT 8
Heal DV: F-4
Silence DV: F-1
Levitate DV: F-2
Combat Sense DV: F
Increase Inherent Limits DV: F-1
== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Bone Lacing (Aluminum)
Cybereyes Basic System Rating 2
+Image Link
+Smartlink
+Thermographic Vision
+Vision Magnification
+Vision Enhancement Rating 1
Datajack
Obvious Full Arm (AGI 9, STR 9, Physical 10) (Right)
+Customized Agility Rating 6
+Customized Strength Rating 6
+Enhanced Agility Rating 3
+Enhanced Strength Rating 3
+Armor Rating 3
+Spurs
Orthoskin Rating 3
Synaptic Booster Rating 2
== Armor ==
Forearm Guards 1
Mortimer of London: Argentum Coat 4
+Concealability
+Custom Fit (Stack)
Mortimer of London: Berwick Suit 9
+Custom Fit
== Weapons ==
Savalette Guardian
+Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
+Gas-Vent 3 System
+Smartgun System, Internal
Pool: 17 Accuracy: 7 DV: 8P AP: -1 RC: 5
Spurs
Pool: 17 Accuracy: 4 DV: 12P AP: -2 RC: 1
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Build
Hmmm ... a few thoughts on your take:
1) OP said he'd like two cyberarms with spurs. You definitely have the nuyen; whats your essence looking like?
2) Instead of Focused Concentration 4 would it be better to bind a level 1 sustaining focus and use reagents? I'm not sure, actually.
3) Your physical limit is pretty low. I know you have the increase limit spell, but sustaining that and combat sense would be an issue at the moment (you need sustaining foci).
4) Ritual Spellcasting seems sort of useless for the character. You could break that out into boosting spellcasting more, and counterspelling, and perception, and grabbing a point of etiquette
5) If you use two cyberarms would bone lacing be worth it? You wouldn't see the unarmed damage boost with the spurs, after all.
6*) If you dropped focus concentration 4 for sustaining foci you could use the karma to boost magic to 2, and go mystic adept and grab the astral perception thingy (for assessing) and a level of combat sense and the improved physical limit boost. That would get rid of the need to sustain combat sense, and the need to sustain the increased physical limit (unless you don't think a limit of 5 would be high enough).
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I think FC 4 might be better as it stands up to Background Count better and BC is a LOT more prevalent in 5th than it was in 4th.
Ritual Spellcasting for this guy would be kinda useless yeah. Watchers are cool and rituals can be too but this is better for a dedicated mage. Maybe a point to help in rituals if there's another PC that can do them but that is better bought with karma.
Low Phys Limit for a cyber spur character is bad since Unarmed attack Limit = Physical Limit. Or do you calculate the Limit per arm if you have a cyberarm? My guess is no... At any rate, 5 is pretty low Limit for your main combat shtick.
Bone Lacing is cheap soak, that alone is worth it. It also provides a different vector for P damage that isn't a blade in case that might matter on occasion. And would make your kicks P too.
Astral Perception is better as a focus IMO. In my experience you take stuff you want always on with PP and Astral Perception is more situational than, say, Improved Reflexes or Combat Sense.
Probably want to make one of the cyber spurs a weapon focus though...
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Sorry I've been silent. Still processing everything I'm reading while also trying to cram on the rule books too. I also recently bought Street Grimoire, but now I can't remember where I put it. Wanted Run Faster, but they were out of the regular version.
Unfortunately, I'm also getting slammed with a lot of overtime at work which is killing my free time. >:(
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Build
Hmmm ... a few thoughts on your take:
1) OP said he'd like two cyberarms with spurs. You definitely have the nuyen; whats your essence looking like?
2) Instead of Focused Concentration 4 would it be better to bind a level 1 sustaining focus and use reagents? I'm not sure, actually.
3) Your physical limit is pretty low. I know you have the increase limit spell, but sustaining that and combat sense would be an issue at the moment (you need sustaining foci).
4) Ritual Spellcasting seems sort of useless for the character. You could break that out into boosting spellcasting more, and counterspelling, and perception, and grabbing a point of etiquette
5) If you use two cyberarms would bone lacing be worth it? You wouldn't see the unarmed damage boost with the spurs, after all.
6*) If you dropped focus concentration 4 for sustaining foci you could use the karma to boost magic to 2, and go mystic adept and grab the astral perception thingy (for assessing) and a level of combat sense and the improved physical limit boost. That would get rid of the need to sustain combat sense, and the need to sustain the increased physical limit (unless you don't think a limit of 5 would be high enough).
1. Essence is tight, will rearrange to get the second arm added. Missed that requirement, thanks.
2. Cheaper but less robust. Trade off, certainly a viable choice though.
3. Limits in Combat are typically the Accuracy of the weapon. Limits come up more frequently in non-combat skill checks, so the potential is there to juggle spells as needed. Keep Combat sense running as the default, drop and cast Increase limits when sneaking or whatever. Drop and cast Combat Sense when it looks like shooting is about to start. And neither buff is critical, just really nice to have. *shrug* Aura Twisting, shadowrun-style.
4. Sorcery skill group, not Ritual Spellcasting as an individual skill. It's the bonus skill for that group. The 5 group skill points may be better off in Conjuring and spellcasting picked up individually but then I wind up without Counterspelling or Assensing or something. And no other group skills looked as beneficial. Still very likely there is a more optimal arrangement of skills if the OP has different ideas for what he wants.
5. The Bone lacing will likely go for Essence reasons to get the 2nd limb. We'll see.
6. Spend 20 Karma (Magic to 2, and 2 Power points), and drop 1 Essence of Augments, to drop Astral Projection, pick up Astral Perception (1 PP) and 1 PP worth of stuff. Could be done, personally I'd go with +2 Accuracy on the spurs and +1 Physical limit. With one more point of STR physical limit goes up as well. Certainly an option, I'd rather juggle spells as needed. The problem with Mystic Adept Burnouts is you need to get to 2 magic to get ahead if you want Astral Perception. *shrug* I think Burn-outs may be the one case where Mystic Adepts are not the clearly better option.
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Astral Perception isn't worth it without Assensing and this character is very skill tight as it is.
Better if the team has a real mage for that duty.
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Take 2 with twice as many Cyber Arms. Can go Mystic Adept if you drop some things (Str back to 1, Focused Concentration goes to 1 or 2, mentor spirit likely goes away ). If you do go Mystic Adept, then Way of the Burnout opens up and is a good pick. The left arm is the basic 3 str, 3 Agility, 3 Armor arm because you're really not using it for anything other than Soak. You've got the basic shadowrunner starter kit and not quite 50k of Nuyen still to tweak the cyberware or add a car or other gear. (Foci?) SINner quality seems a given for this character so I grabbed the basic corporate SIN negative quality. Still 10 points to go if you want, and you likely do. IMO a spellcasting specialization (Detection?) would be an easy pick for Karma. Mentor Spirit Snake is a mostly random choice, several are good for this character.
Also note, swapped the Group skills over to Conjuring from Sorcery so you can see what that does. Mostly it means pick a random skill and drop it (Assensing is gone). But Spellcasting and Counterspelling are up a tick and you pick up Binding and Banishing, not that you could use either of those skills with a 1 magic. But there you go. I'm really not sure what else to do with 5 Group Skill points on this character. Sorcery seems to be the best option, YMMV.
Mechanically "better" choices IMO would be drop the STR augments and go with a monowhip. Automatics > Pistols. Random Cyberleg>Random Cyber Arm. Two cyberlegs are even better, and possible if you go Mystic Adept Way of the Burn out, or drop Bone Lacing and some other 'ware and likely the Str augments in the Arm. Non-trivial choices if you want, but two 9 Agility Cyber Legs are funny.
Weak points. Limits, limits, limits, Accuracy of the Cyberspur aka your physical limit, move score aka your Agility and essentially every calculated secondary stat. Welcome to attributes D, we have low stats, but lots of money and skills. :P
Info ==
Street Name: Burn out
Name: Unnamed Character
Movement: 6/12
Karma: 4 remaining (potentially 14)
Positive Qualities 21 karma
Negative Qualities -15 Karma
+1 to Str 10 Karma
+1 to Mag 5 Karma
Street Cred: 0
Notoriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0
Human
Composure: 4
Judge Intentions: 6
Lift/Carry: 5 (30 kg/20 kg)
Memory: 4
Nuyen: 48900
== Priorities ==
Metatype: E - Human
Attributes: D - 14 Attributes
Special: C - Adept, Magician, or Technomancer
Skills: B - 36 Skills/5 Skill Groups
Resources: A - 450,000¥
== Attributes ==
BOD: 3
AGI: 3
REA: 5 (7)
STR: 2
CHA: 1
INT: 5
LOG: 1
WIL: 3
EDG: 3
MAG: 1
== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 1.02
Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Rigger Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Astral Initiative: 10 + 2d6
Matrix AR Initiative: 12 + 3d6
Matrix Cold Initiative: 5 + DP + 3d6
Matrix Hot Initiative: 5 + DP + 4d6
Physical Damage Track: 12
Stun Damage Track: 10
== Limits ==
Physical: 5
Mental: 4
Social: 3
Custom Ballistic Mask [+1] (Only for intimidation, Must be visible)
Astral: 4
== Active Skills ==
Banishing : 5 Pool: 6
Binding : 5 Pool: 6
Counterspelling : 6 Pool: 7
Perception : 6 Pool: 11
Pistols : 6 Pool: 9
Sneaking : 6 Pool: 9
Spellcasting : 6 Pool: 7
Summoning : 5 Pool: 6
Unarmed Combat : 6 Pool: 9
== Knowledge Skills ==
== Qualities ==
Focused Concentration (Rating 4)
Magician
Mentor Spirit (Snake)
SINner (Corporate Limited) (Former Wage Mage)
== Spells ==
(Tradition: Sioux, Resist Drain with WIL + INT (8))
Combat Sense (Limited) DV: F-2
Heal DV: F-4
Increase Inherent Limits (Limited) DV: F-3
Levitate (Limited) DV: F-4
Silence (Limited) DV: F-3
== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Bone Lacing (Aluminum)
Cybereyes Basic System Rating 2
+Image Link
+Smartlink
+Flare Compensation
+Vision Enhancement Rating 1
+Vision Magnification
Damage Compensators Rating 2
Datajack - Alpha
Obvious Full Arm (AGI 3, STR 3, Physical 6) (Left) - Alpha
+Armor Rating 3
Obvious Full Arm (AGI 9, STR 9, Physical 10) (Right)
+Armor Rating 3
+Customized Agility Rating 6
+Enhanced Agility Rating 3
+Spurs
+Customized Strength Rating 6
+Enhanced Strength Rating 3
Orthoskin Rating 3 -Alpha
Synaptic Booster Rating 2
== Armor ==
Armor Jacket 12
Custom Ballistic Mask 2
== Weapons ==
Savalette Guardian
+Advanced Safety System, Basic
+Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
+Gas-Vent 3 System
+Personalized Grip
+Smartgun System, Internal
+Spare Clip
Pool: 15 Accuracy: 8 DV: 8P AP: -1 RC: 5
Spurs
Pool: 15 Accuracy: 5 DV: 12P AP: -2 RC: 1
Unarmed Attack
Pool: 9 Accuracy: 5 DV: 4P AP: - RC: 1
== Commlink ==
Transys Avalon (ATT: 0, SLZ: 0, DP: 6, FWL: 6)
== Gear ==
Ammo: APDS (Light Pistols) x50
Fake SIN (Bob) Rating 4
+Fake License (Concealed Carry Permit) Rating 4
+Fake License (Restricted Bioware License) Rating 4
+Fake License (Restricted Cyberware License) Rating 4
Medkit Rating 3
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New Build
Hmm ... looking pretty solid. :) I would probably have switched the attribute/skill priorities myself (I figure skills are cheaper to raise than attributes), but thats just my preference.
A few things I might tweak ...
I'd drop 2 points in sneaking for 2 specializations: a cyberblade (or whatever) specialization for unarmed, and a spellcasting specialization.
The 5 point skill group really is almost totally useless ... :/
I don't know that I'd drop the stats on the 2nd full arm - after all, won't you be using it for your unarmed attacks as well? Or not ... I'm not sure how ambidextrous stuff works with unarmed ... would that be a worthwhile quality to pick up, at the cost of a level of focused concentration?
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Ambidexterity is really just to swap between ranged and melee and still able to attack that action pass. Ambidexterity could be squeezed in if a level of FC is dropped, but then you've got to scrounge up enough Nuyen to at least upgrade the Agility on the left arm. Certainly doable, but there are possibly better things to buy. Cars? Lifestyles? Not sure what all the OP has in mind for some of that stuff so I'm trying to leave a puddle of moneys.
Stats on the left arm would "never" be used for Spurs or Pistol since they're both one handed, unless you picked up Ambidexterity. Then you could Agility up the left, and use spurs on the right and gun in the left.
Stealth shouldn't be dropped since the Agility isn't so hot. 9 dice is enough to get past mooks most of the time. Add in Silence and Concealment and you're pretty sneaky, but still no ninja. If the OP wants to pick up Specializations drop points out of either Perception or Counterspelling.
The 5 point Skill group is frequently totally useless. But in this characters case I think Sorcery is a decent deal. Much better than Conjuring, I just put it in there for this build for comparisons sake. Now you know ;)
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Alright, here's my first shot at it.
Burn Out
METATYPE: HUMAN
B 4, A 3, R 4, S 3, W 6, L 5, I 5, C 2, ESS 3.16, EDG 2, M 3
Condition Monitor (P/S): 12 / 11
Armor: 9
Limits: Physical 5, Mental 7, Social 5
Physical Initiative: 9+1D6
Astral Initiative: 10+3D6
Active Skills: Assensing 1, Counterspelling 6, Pistols 3, Spellcasting 6, Unarmed Combat 6
Languages: English N
Qualities: Ambidexterous, Hermetic Magician, High Pain Tolerance (1)
Spells: Armor, Fireball, Heal, Ignite, Increase Reflexes
Augmentations:
. . Cyberears (Alphaware) (3) w/ Audio Enhancement (Alphaware) (1), Balance Augmenter (Alphaware), Damper (Alphaware), Select Sound Filter (Alphaware) (3), Sound Link (Alphaware), Spatial Recognizer (Alphaware)
. . Cybereyes (Alphaware) (3) w/ Flare Compensation (Alphaware), Image Link (Alphaware), Low-Light Vision (Alphaware), Smartlink (Alphaware), Thermographic Vision (Alphaware), Vision Enhancement (Alphaware) (2), Vision Magnification (Alphaware)
. . Internal Air Tank (Alphaware) (1)
. . Left Arm w/ Cyberlimb Agility (5), Cyberlimb Strength (6)
. . . . Heavy Cyber Pistol w/ (8x) APDS, Smartgun System, Internal
. . Right Arm w/ Cyberlimb Agility (5), Cyberlimb Strength (6)
. . . . Shock Hand w/ Internal Battery
. . . . Spurs
Gear:
. . Armor Vest w/ Fire Resistance (6), Nonconductivity (3)
. . Burn Out w/ (12 months) DocWagon Basic Contract, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle, (1 month) Middle Lifestyle
. . Identity: Specify Name w/ Fake SIN (2)
. . Identity: Specify Name w/ Fake SIN (2)
. . Identity: Specify Name w/ Fake SIN (4)
. . Power Focus (3)
. . Subvocal Microphone
. . Transys Avalon Commlink w/ Biomonitor
Weapons:
. . Heavy Cyber Pistol [Heavy Pistol, Acc 6, DV 7P, AP -5, SA, 8 (m)] w/ (8x) APDS, Smartgun System, Internal
. . Shock Hand [Unarmed, Acc 5, DV 9S(e), AP -5] w/ Internal Battery
. . Spurs [Unarmed, Acc 5, DV 9P, AP -2]
. . Regular Ammo (Heavy Pistol) x8 [Acc 0, DV –, AP –]
Starting ¥: 988 + (4D6 × 100)¥
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Shadowrun © 2005-2015 The Topps Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Shadowrun is a registered trademark of The Topps Company, Inc.
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Build
First impressions:
Attributes - Body and Will should be odd numbers (there is no real benefit for even numbers). If you're a hermetic mage then use 6 Logic instead. Even better would be a W+I tradition of magic.
Skills: Assessing 1 isn't too useful. You need a spellcasting specialization (not combat), due to your low magic score. You should have an unarmed specialization as well. You may want to push your assessing+counterspelling points to pistols. For all intents and purposes pistols will be your ranged attack, and unarmed combat will be your melee attack. You should probably get a pistol specialization too.
Qualities: You really need a mentor spirit to further boost your spellcasting and make up for your low magic score. Pain tolerance isn't so useful, and you could also drop ambidexterity if you needed to ...
Spells: Armor is terrible - it makes you glow. You should swap it for levitate, or something else that isn't opposed. Fireball/ignite - you maybe want 1 attack spell, but no more. You won't have the dice to properly do them.
Augmentations: Cyberears are generally not worth it, also why are you paying for alphware here? You don't get much of a benefit. Use that money to get 6 agility cyberlimbs instead - that is much more important for you. You'll probably want to pay extra for more agility in your limb/strength in your melee limb.
Gear: 6 months of lifestyle - not necessary, you can go much cheaper if you need the money to further up your limbs.
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Pistols 3 is a dice pool of 8, maybe 10 with a smartlink, which is not going to hit anything generally. Better to take Automatics or Longarms with an auto-shotgun and lay down suppressing fire or full-auto shots - the defense test penalties might actually allow something to hit there.
As was said above - you do not want to be doing opposed tests for spells. You don't have a good enough pool to do anything there. My strong suggestion is go with other buffs or utility spells like Physical Mask or Improved Invisibility.
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Pistols 3 is a dice pool of 8, maybe 10 with a smartlink, which is not going to hit anything generally. Better to take Automatics or Longarms with an auto-shotgun and lay down suppressing fire or full-auto shots - the defense test penalties might actually allow something to hit there.
As was said above - you do not want to be doing opposed tests for spells. You don't have a good enough pool to do anything there. My strong suggestion is go with other buffs or utility spells like Physical Mask or Improved Invisibility.
AFB, aren't Physical Mask and Invisibility effectively opposed by perception tests? Invisibility + Concealment from a Spirit + Sneaking skill you may be able to get past something, but you don't have Sneaking.
Finding useful spells that are unopposed is a fairly short list. Levitate is right up there. Combat Sense is good but you're already running increased reflexes.
And Armored Vest, why not just grab the Armored Jacket if you're not taking any of the high fashion armor?
I'd say you can dump STR if you've got two Cyber Arms but your physical limit is already a bit low for an unarmed character. You really only need to have STR buffed on the Spur Arm, and you'll want to get that to 9.
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The mental attribute thing is more of a roleplaying thing than it is a mechanical thing. There are enough threads on this topic in the forums to let me know that there is a lot of variation amongst players and GMs on this topic, but (for me) roleplaying a Logic 1 character means essentially never coming up with a good idea, which would be pretty boring.
Not to derail on this subject, but while Attributes of 1 are the minimum, they are still playable. There's not a rule that you start at 1 and have to raise it to at least a 2, even if most people do. LOG 1 certainly is not "never comes up with a good idea." IRL there are plenty of people at borderline intellectual functioning, which I posit is probably worse than LOG 1 as represented in the system, who are incredibly creative, insightful and thoughtful individuals. At the same time, the system doesn't represent IRL, but I don't think that the player of a LOG 1 character is estopped from having good ideas just because, functionally, LOG might track to IQ in some way.
This is a bit of a point where the system representing characters breaks down a bit. It's easy enough to imagine STR 1 as a 98-pound weakling or BOD 1 as someone who is largely in poor health, or AGI 1 as a complete and utter klutz or perhaps someone with essential tremor that affects their ability to aim or handle objects effectively, but it's much harder to quantify low mental attributes in a way that isn't sort of offensive.
And, as has been brought up in other threads, you can have a valid LOG 1 character who also has Hacking 6. It's not optimized, but the system certainly allows it, even if it might cause some verisimilitude confusion. Best to remember the system is not the setting in this case. You might not be able to roll well with LOG 1 but I think an ST who doesn't allow you to even present ideas IC is kind of a dick.
1 Logic = 6th grade education. Pretty easy to RP. Certainly doesn't indicate any kind of mental handicap, there are qualities for that. Logic is mostly book learning in Shadowrun, Academic and Technical skills. Doesn't stop you from having good ideas, you just can't draw up the blueprints.
For the most part Jr. High School students or older folks are good examples of 1 stats, often multiple 1 stats, and are able to get through day to day life without significant hardship. Given how strongly Shadowrun mechanically encourages specialization tossing in "free" negative qualities for low stats is unnecessary. You'll have low limits, movement, encumbrance, Memory, Judge intentions, Composure, initiative, Defense pool, Soak, Contacts, Knowledge skills, or whatever for the low stats. Isn't that punishment enough? :'(
I'll point out that the average 6th grader is, by definition, a moron.
Doesn't mean that they can't be highly skilled in an area of expertise. I worked with a guy that where we had a running joke that he needed to be taken to school career days. He didn't have a 5th grade education but made over 100k a year cause he was a magician of a welder. I don't think education level is the true testament of Logic attribute, though it might have relevance in light of skills attached to it.
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I see Logic as a combination of education and raw processing power of the brain, and Intuition is common sense, practical wisdom, and guile.
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Pistols 3 is a dice pool of 8, maybe 10 with a smartlink, which is not going to hit anything generally. Better to take Automatics or Longarms with an auto-shotgun and lay down suppressing fire or full-auto shots - the defense test penalties might actually allow something to hit there.
As was said above - you do not want to be doing opposed tests for spells. You don't have a good enough pool to do anything there. My strong suggestion is go with other buffs or utility spells like Physical Mask or Improved Invisibility.
AFB, aren't Physical Mask and Invisibility effectively opposed by perception tests? Invisibility + Concealment from a Spirit + Sneaking skill you may be able to get past something, but you don't have Sneaking.
AFB right now as well but IIRC mana illusions are resisted with INT + LOG and physical illusions are resisted with INT + WIL. Or something like that. But I know Perception isn't part of the resist test. That said if you're invisible and make noise a guard or whatnot could test Perception to hear the noise and call in someone to do an astral check or something even if they fail the roll to resist the illusion.
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That sounds right. So, roll mooks regularly, anything with a decent Int gets slightly risky, tough stuff is a coin toss. Background count will be brutal.
*shrug* I guess they'll be just useful enough to get you into serious trouble, just not out of serious trouble when the "real opposition" shows up. :)
I still think Levitation is a solid choice.
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I'm looking at this again and I notice I've got cyber earS and eyeS. I was only going for 1 of each. Did I miss a check box or something somewhere in herolab? Or is it going to cost me the same either way? I had to spend some karma on cash so maybe that will free some up to help boost some skills.
I'll try to make a second draft this weekend with some of the suggestions.
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I think it is the same cost for one or two eyes/ears. It may very well be that you can't take just one just due to how these body systems are optimized to work in binary.
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I'm looking at this again and I notice I've got cyber earS and eyeS. I was only going for 1 of each. Did I miss a check box or something somewhere in herolab? Or is it going to cost me the same either way? I had to spend some karma on cash so maybe that will free some up to help boost some skills.
I'll try to make a second draft this weekend with some of the suggestions.
Mechanically Eye mods and Ear mods go in each. You can't get two rating one Ears with different mods in them. Aesthetically you can just say its only a single eye or ear though if that is what you were after.
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Aesthetically you can just say its only a single eye or ear though if that is what you were after
If they re-release the single cybereye in Chromed Flesh, as they did in Augmentation, then you'll have a mess to sort out later on.
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IIRC missions legal characters get a free respec when a new book comes out. As a GM I let players do minor tweaks when new stuff comes out that they would have gotten at Chargen if it had been available.
I can see the argument for doing it the other way though. In the end Cybereyes and ears are one of the cheaper pieces of gear to pick up so it shouldn't be too bad to sort out.