Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Poindexter on <11-08-15/0132:11>
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You're a human street mage, mystic adept but not super great at it. (10 dice) You make up the difference in guns and military experience. (10 dice in those, too) Decent summoner, too (10 dice) and have one bound spirit for sustaining spells and whatnot. Good stats already, with no major shortcomings. Already got increased reflexes covered.
Ya only got enough Karma at character gen for three spells. What three do ya take?
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Increase reflexes, stunbolt, improved invisibility.
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Analyze Device, Heal, Increase Reflexes. You can exchange Heal for Levitate if you have someone competent with a medkit.
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Increased Reflexes, Heal, Clout.
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Levitate, Improved Invisibility, Heal. Utility, ho!
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Increase Reflexes/Combat Sense, Heal/Magic Fingers, Powerbolt/Manabolt.
You likely aren't going to be able to easily sustain both IR and CS, so pick one or the other based on your personal preference.
If you have a good healer, you can skip Heal, but it is still handy for the First Aid + Heal combo. If you drop Heal, get Magic Fingers or vice versa.
Powerbolt/Manabolt gives a direct damage spell in your preference of stun or physical damage. Since you have guns, indirect spells are less valuable, though an area spell might still be useful if you don't have anyone that can throw/launch grenades. But because spell slots are limited, a direct spell trumps an area spell for now.
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10 dice mean you'll be working with a limited number of successes. As such, spells that aren't opposed will be the most consistently successful. Depending on the needs of the team, I would probably go:
Heal
Levitate
Ball Lightning
The logic would be "what's hardest to duplicate?" Increase Reflexes is great but I'd use combat stims. I love Magic Fingers but several spirit types can do that with psychokinesis. You could argue that Ball Lightning is redundant with a spirit's elemental weapon but the area-effect really boosts its utility (and rolling against a threshold is preferable to rolling against a Defense test when you have a limited dice pool, especially since your scatter may not exceed the spell's area of effect). Invisibility is tempting but a spirit's Concealment can help with that. Obviously it's not a perfect stand-in, but with a 3-hit Invisibility spell you're still going to be seen by about a third of the world (~32%) even if they only have 6 dice to resist the spell.
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Heal
Control thoughts
mind probe
I go for things that cannot be duplicated by any other means
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Heal is the first spell any caster takes.
The low dice pools are tricky. It also depends on your role in the group. Are you the only caster? If so I would say stunbolt to counter magical threats and hard targets that your guns bounce off off, but with only ten dice you might only do a few boxes of stun per cast.
Are you mage or mystic adept?
How much edge do you have?
Since you mention guns as you main offence, and lacking further info on the character I would say that you are should go with improved invisibility and increased reflexes as your other two spells. Initiative is king and invisibility rocks. Early karma gains should probably add things like confusion or mass confusion, a direct combat spell, and something like levitate or magic fingers.
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Powerbolt/Manabolt gives a direct damage spell in your preference of stun or physical damage.
Both of those are physical. One is resisted with body (aka physical type) and the other is mana (resisted with will). Stunbolt is the stun version of manabolt.
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Should have mentioned that you're a mystic adept and already have increased reflexes covered. Will modify initial post.
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Based on what yall are saying, I think I may go with:
Heal (Cause everyone agrees)
Stunball (Cause Tec is right about the "threshold vs opposed test" thing, but I feel like I got lethal dmg covered with full-auto apds and all.)
Mind Probe (Cause Ikarinokami is right about not being able to duplicate it.)
Thoughts?
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How much edge do you have?
5
Early karma gains should probably add things like confusion or mass confusion, a direct combat spell, and something like levitate or magic fingers.
Agreed 100% on confusion/mass confusion.
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Ten dice? Decent? Oh heck no. That is the point for a tertiary skill ability. Anything below that point is a "fluff" skill for the character.
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My answer also depends on what the MysAd bought with PP (hint: the correct answers should be Improved Reflexes and some Combat Sense).
Given guns at 10 dice (which I will assume are Automatics, therefore giving the option of autofire and suppressive fire), I would take Heal, Stunbolt, and Chaotic World.
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Ten dice? Decent? Oh heck no. That is the point for a tertiary skill ability. Anything below that point is a "fluff" skill for the character.
Well, it depends. For many campaigns, yes, this is low. But power levels vary greatly by table, and it an street level campaign where 12 dice is top of the mark then 10 dice might not be bad. From a simulationist point of view, 10 dice is professional training, above average talent (atributes) and a gear bonus. We are used to building characters that are virtually superheroes in this game, but not all groups go as far down the transhumanist rabbit hole.
On the other hand, to the OP, if this is an actual character you are going to play and not just a thought experiment, consult with your DM about power levels. There are definitely tables out there where you would feel under powered. If you are a mysad with guns then you can definitely do much better on attack pools than this.
Also, what was generation method. Karma Gen? Than may explain part of it, that tends to build slight weaker, if more well rounded, characters.
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Ten dice? Decent? Oh heck no. That is the point for a tertiary skill ability. Anything below that point is a "fluff" skill for the character.
I'm not playing in a super tight game where anything less than 12 dice is "fluff". It's a bit more forgiving than that. But thanks. I really wasn't looking for advice on the whole concept, so much as I was for three spells.
My answer also depends on what the MysAd bought with PP (hint: the correct answers should be Improved Reflexes and some Combat Sense).
Given guns at 10 dice (which I will assume are Automatics, therefore giving the option of autofire and suppressive fire), I would take Heal, Stunbolt, and Chaotic World.
Twas improved reflexes and spell resist, cause I've never tried spell resist before. Seems fun and fits with his backstory.
Why Stunbolt vs stunball? Jus curious.
We are used to building characters that are virtually superheroes in this game, but not all groups go as far down the transhumanist rabbit hole.
This.
Also, what was generation method. Karma Gen? Than may explain part of it, that tends to build slight weaker, if more well rounded, characters.
Life modules!!!
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Why Stunbolt vs stunball? Jus curious.
Lower Drain, and not ever really missing area stun damage. You want to use Stunball to catch the most targets (high Force) but you also kinda want to cast direct spells at F1 with a reagent-set Limit, and at F1 you hit only a small area. Or you do Spell Shaping, and because direct spells depend on high numbers of net hits to maximize damage, you actively impede your damage calculation with Spell Shaping
Compare to indirect combat spells, which you never want to cast with reagents due to their damage calculation, and taking casting penalties with Spell Shaping doesn't appreciably affect their end damage.
TL;DR: If I need to hit multiple targets, I'll be using Ball Lightning.
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Direct is bad idea with 10 dice. Indirect maybe easier to resist but your going to get more effect per die.
(Average 3 successes is 3 damage @ force 6 for direct, vs 9 damage with 3 successes @ force 6 for indirect.)
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Im suprised no one said Heal, Mana Barrier and Physical barrier to give that caster a more support menatlity. I did however see no shortage of levitate and im wondering why? Im a bit on a SR noob and I dont understand why youd take that over my selections? Im not saying im right and your wrong, im asking you to coach me up on this.
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I did however see no shortage of levitate and im wondering why? Im a bit on a SR noob and I dont understand why youd take that over my selections?
1. Mages typically have crappy physical stats and this lets you fall from a height or get over fences easier.
2. Easy way to escape situations. Used this on myself, the extraction target, and another character to jump out a window, thus avoiding the people creeping around in the hallway.
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The barriers are very easy to break through, which limits their actual utility
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Mana Barrier spam is great when you're fighting spirits though.
Had a great game fighting a few Shedim, the mage kept re-raising the destroyed Mana Barrier every action. He sucked down a lot of Drain, but it kept the rest of us alive long enough to destroy the Shedim.
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10 dice isn't enough for direct spells.
I would do: control thoughts, levitate, and magic fingers. Not sure what else your character has for stats but if he has good strength a weapon foci would be a much better way to deal with spirits
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The barriers are very easy to break through, which limits their actual utility
Barrier has a hundred-and-one uses when you view it as a utility spell, rather than as an all-purpose combat defense. It may be the most cast non-attack spell in my game, and most of those casting are not at really high forces. (Granted it may help that I read the spell as saying you can place your wall or dome how you want, not just planted perpendicular to the ground). I’m sure there are threads on this somewhere with more uses listed, but just to get your imagination sparked, here are a few things I can recall it being used for in my game:
- Bridge between nearby building roof tops (and for slightly longer gaps, two barriers, one coming from each side)
- Around someone attacking with shock gloves (stun damage won’t break it) to slow them down (forced them to draw their pistol and shoot through the barrier), which gave time for a spirit to join the fight
- To hold back a swarm of devil rats (that one was edged, for higher armor)
- Just inside a door, the direction that the door opens. Doors do not generally do physical damage, so until something is used that punches through the door, it isn’t opening.
- Alongside a vehicle as it is about to make a turn onto a narrow street. Sure given time the driver could veer away then ram into it, but trying to push against something right beside the vehicle is harder. (another edged roll, to make it stronger) Made the chasing vehicle miss the turn.
- As a work platform on the side of a building—levitated there, but barrier reduced the risk of dropping tools or having bits cut out of the wall falling to the ground and making a ruckus outside of the sustained silence spell)
- To keep a helicopter from taking off (chopper pilot wasn’t willing to risk damage to the rotors)
- To make along drop survivable, by breaking it up a couple of times with barriers
All of that said, unless another character has them covered already, I'd still take levitation and invisibility (and maybe silence) above barrier. Barrier is great utility, while the other ones outright let you do things that let you complete bypass a lot of drek.
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Here's my 3 choices:
1) Heal - It's always useful 'cause someone is bound to get hurt.
2) Physical Barrier - Pure utility. It's explained well above me.
3) Ice Sheet - This is my favorite spell. With 10 dice you'll likely get at least 2 successes. Those 2 successes will give anyone in the area of effect a Threshold 2 Agility + Reaction test to avoid falling prone, and confers the same threshold to a Crash Test if a vehicle drives over it. Add to the fact that it's not sustained, and it's a fire and forget crowd control ability. Really want it to work? Edge that sucker. I once got 6 successes on an Ice Sheet. Kept an entire kill squad flat on their back.
Honorable Mentions: Influence, Chaotic World/Chaos, Levitate, Improved Invisibility.
Physical Barrier is the one I'd swap out for one of the Honorable Mentions. Probably Influence.
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Here's my 3 choices:
1) Heal - It's always useful 'cause someone is bound to get hurt.
2) Physical Barrier - Pure utility. It's explained well above me.
3) Ice Sheet - This is my favorite spell. With 10 dice you'll likely get at least 2 successes. Those 2 successes will give anyone in the area of effect a Threshold 2 Agility + Reaction test to avoid falling prone, and confers the same threshold to a Crash Test if a vehicle drives over it. Add to the fact that it's not sustained, and it's a fire and forget crowd control ability. Really want it to work? Edge that sucker. I once got 6 successes on an Ice Sheet. Kept an entire kill squad flat on their back.
Honorable Mentions: Influence, Chaotic World/Chaos, Levitate, Improved Invisibility.
Physical Barrier is the one I'd swap out for one of the Honorable Mentions. Probably Influence.
Ice sheet in this game is a pretty terrible spell. being prone is not really much of a negative. maybe ice sheet combine with a grenades or AOE spell