Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: LordGrizzle on <09-29-16/1649:49>
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Ok. So quick question: I am trying to build a full on battlemage but one thing I am not to sure how to approach it best is Initiative / Defense.
What is the best solution for increasing those stats? For Chromeboys and Adepts it's so easy, because your default initiative-booster can be practically be always on and on top of that increases reaction too which confers you with a ton of additional initiative & defense.
How should I go about this on a mage? Drugs? Buff Spells with Sustaining Foci? Just sacrifice a bit of essence to get something along the lines of a synaptic booster? Or should I better build a Mystic Adept and use Gateway for the situations when I actually have to go out of my body?
Any help is appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
LordGrizzle
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"Standard" ways that people approach this:
1) Increased Reflexes Spell + Focused Concentration Quality
2) Increased Reflexes Spell + Health Spell Sustaining Focus
3) Take drugs.
4) Be a Mystic Adept ;D
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Thank you. I always forget about Focused Concentration. But one problem that can not so easily be addressed through Increase Reflexes is the defense pool. Do you think Increase Reaction in addition to Increase Reflexes is a good idea? Or should I rather shoot for another form of defense like Physical Barrier or Invisibility? Thoughts?
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There is a spell for that : Combat Sense it's a Detection spell and it adds 1 dice for surprise and defense test per net hits. Note that the drain is F while Increase [Attribute] is F - 3 so Increase REA would probably be better but you can also stack the two if you want to go really high. Armor is an other good way to increase your survivability.
I recommend to pick Physical Barrier and Improved Invisibility anyway, these spells have too much utility not to have them.
A little trick to sustain all these buffs : buy some Sustaining Foci rating 1 and cast the spell Force 1 using Reagents to change the limit. Keep in mind that any Background Count or an enemy mage with Counterspelling would stop your buffs easily. If you find it too cheesy Bound Spirits can sustain spells for you.
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Ah yes, the eternal question of "how to make a mage be combat survivable".
There are two basic approaches.... The first has been outlined. (Buff spells, foci, sustaining).
There are some drawbacks to this approach. The first is its resource intensive. Between karma, build points and cash, you can sink a lot into trying to buff up physical combat. The other issue is astral intersections with wards... you hit a ward unaware, and you will either lose all your sustained buffs, or collapse the barrier and alert the ward's mage.
The other approach is the 'stealth' approach. You rely on sneaking and invisibility to keep the attention of hostles on the meatier members of your team.
The key to this trick is trick is remaining unnoticed, so you want to use mana and other direct combat spells as they don't give off visual clues to your location. (Nothing says 'invisible mage!' Like a gout of flame coming from nothing!).
The drawback to this approach is that it is basically a one trick pony, and the astral plane (but less so then the first approach). You are also generally not as enhanced initiative wise... which limits your actions - or increases your opportunity costs.
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Remember the first rule of combat: Geek the mage first!
This isn't a saying, its a tactical doctrine of the 6th world! You look like a mage, you act like a mage, every bullet is comming for you first!
So, don't look or act like a mage! Avoid flashly displays of power, or light shows of elemental indirect spells. These paint a giant bulleye on your back. (And really, whats more terrorfying, a troll with an assault rifle OR a mage that can burn you and your squad to death with a flick of a finger?).
I generally use the second approach, as well as judical timing of actions during combat.... which means some combats I am doing nothing at all. After all, a mage is basically a one man arty unit. You don't use artillery on plebs, you use it on bunched enemies and to suppress..... which is exactly what I do.
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A great and easy way to boost your defense dice as a mage is Betameth and the Deflection spell with a Force 3 or 4 Sustaining Focus. Together you can easily add around 6 more dice, which is pretty significant.
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I would go Intuition based and Exceptional Attribute Intuition. With 7 Intuition and 3 Reaction you have 10 dodge dice. Initiative will also be high. Combat Sense spell can increase defense. The cheese variant is focused concentration 1 and cast with reagents to raise limit. (This trick does not work on Increase Attribute spells due to wording)
Edge is also useful for getting high initiative. If I have a human mage I will go for 5 or even 7 edge. Combat seldom lasts many turns so if you can use edge the first combat turn it's almost over.
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Drugs+Detox is a great way to get your Ini up without suffering the consequences
But on the whole a high charisma+magic rating allows you to sneak through barriers with active spells. So just be an elf with a charisma tradition sneak through.
If that doesn't work: Drop the spell, go through, recast spell with reagents to set the limit, so it fits into your focus. The expenses are manageable, especially if you harvest them yourself.
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I like running a Hermetic Mage with Narco, and some Cerebral Boosters. Willpower 5, Logic 6 (8) lets you handle drug addiction tests well, and really makes Psyche and Cram your wonder speedball. it'll give you +2 Reaction, +2 Intuition, and +1d6 initiative dice. It will also provide nice bonuses to perception, assensing, defense, and Drain. You can still through up some other sustained spells if you like, either with foci, or just running Psyche which turns your sustaining penalty to just -1. You also have .40 more essence to play with to keep max Magic at 5.
And something I haven't seen on the list yet is Channeling. Though a metamagic, it may be less costly than 'waring up. joining with a most F6 spirits will give you +3 to Reaction and +1d6 to initiative.
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I feel like Mystic Adepts are "meant" to be the battle mages of the 6th world. Is there any reason you would be opposed to making one?
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IMO, mystic adepts are...... tricky to build effectively for the early game.
Their karma costs make them very hard to get a good balance of skills, abilites and attributes without taking a large amount of negative qualities.
However, once you get the karma, they are almost overpowered.
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One other thing to keep in mind is that 11 and 21 are the "magic" initiative values. Intuition 5 + Reaction 5 will take you very far, though it is attribute intensive. Hitting 21+ Initiative at creation is the realm of characters who primarily focus on combat. Are you trying to hit 21 initiative?
Mystic Adept can spend, iirc (away from books) 15 Karma to get Increased Reflexes 2 (which, when combined with Intuition 5 + Reaction 4 or better gets you to that threshold).
Spending Edge is an option for clutch situations. A sudden +4d6 (14 average) will bring you over 20 easily.
Drugs is another clutch option, but Kamikaze is the only drug that will make a difference. Or custom drugs.
Increased Reflexes spell is the last option without losing essence. Other people have discussed this in detail.
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As for defense, ten dice is a nice start. If you meed more, your best bet is actually Full Defense--possibly with Agile Defender or something. 15-16 dice will avoid most attacks, at least until you get into fully automatic weapons. Even dodge-focused combat primary characters won't see more than 22 or so, and probably not that much.
Don't skimp on armor. Its just as important as dodge.
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I feel like Mystic Adepts are "meant" to be the battle mages of the 6th world. Is there any reason you would be opposed to making one?
Well, the lack of Astral Projection for one, and for the other that they feel to me as being all over the place.
Thanks to all of you guys for your input. I have started building a character and when I get to something concrete I might post that for feedback.
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I feel like Mystic Adepts are "meant" to be the battle mages of the 6th world. Is there any reason you would be opposed to making one?
Well, you give up astral projection and can only perceive astral if you take the adept power. This is not a trivial loss, astral projection is very useful.
What you get for that is the ability to use an adept power for initiative instead of a spell you must sustain. Its hard to overstate the power of a high initiative. Further,, things like attribute boost, improved skill, and combat sense can greatly boost overall combat effectiveness. Mystic adepts are good option for gun mages or mages that are going to have significant non-magical skills as you can leverage those skills with adept powers.
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CHA-mage. Too Pretty to Hit. Boom.
Well, you give up astral projection and can only perceive astral if you take the adept power. This is not a trivial loss, astral projection is very useful.
It CAN be useful. I can't say I've EVER missed it though. YMMV.
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We are talking about a non-sense, super munchkin, min-max battle mage riiiiight?
so, here it goes:
- Race: pixie (SR Run Faster)
- Most/all karma goes to bounding foci (at least a +4 to reaction and +4 to intuition, will too, if possible)
- Get Debt (-15) disvantage to get money for stuff
- Cast increased reflex (6) every morning and maintain it all day (-2 to all tests is ok if you get +16 to iniciative back)
You can get up to a whopping 22 in your modified reflex+ intuition! With your -2 penalty and incresed reflex, its 20 dices for defence and 26+4d for iniciative (you gona get iniciative 41+ 40% of the time!!!!) If you cross a boss with a full auto big gun, just go full def for extra 10 dices on def...
The golden rule of a fight ("geek the mage first") will actually help your team, since you are almost impossible to hit.
If you go shaman, you can also do some face work with your high charism.
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So, I can out munchkin Gauntlet without going all Pixie.
Race: Wakyambi
Priorities (Sum to 10): Attributes A, Meta C, Mystic Adept [Buddhism] C, Resources C, Skills E
Attributes: Body 5, Agility 6[9], Reaction 5, Strength 2, Willpower 5, Logic 2, Intuition 7[8], Charisma 2, Edge 2, Magic 6.
Qualities: Agile Defender, Mentor Spirit [Bear, Magician Powers], Prototype Transhuman [Wanted], Dependent 2, In Debt 15, Thrill Seeker
Augmentations: Cerebellum Booster 1, Muscle Toner 3
Active Skills: Monofilament Whip 6, Spellcast 6 (+2 Health), Summoning 4 (+2 Spirit of Man)
Adept Powers: Adrenaline Boost 6, Body Boost 1, Reaction Boost 1, Combat Sense 4
Spells: Acid Aura, Combat Sense, Increase Intuition, Increase Willpower, Increase Reflexes
Weapons: Monofilament Whip (Reach is 3 thanks to elongated limbs)
Armor: Sleeping Tiger
You summon a Spirit of Man to offload some of the sustain you might want. Body boost to body help you soak up Adrenaline Boost drain. If your are lucky and your Reaction Boost gets you +3 Reaction, your base melee defense is 20, before you get spells on you. A Combat Sense spell will get you another +4 defense, and Increase Intuition will easily get you another +3 to Intuition & defense (and that also means a +3 to initiative), though might not always be worth the sustain penalty. With Adrenaline Boost firing off, & Thrill Seeker kicking in, you've got a base initiative of 26 + 1d6, but you can cast Increase Reflexes every day as described by Gauntlet to get another +6+3d6 pretty easily. With that, you 46 for your initiative (not counting the effects of Increase Intuition)... which means 5 action phases per combat turn. Sacrificing one of those actions for Agile Defence to get another +9 to all your defense tests is a straight up good deal. So your max defense looks something like 32 (factoring in -4 from sustains), not including reach modifiers. Acid Aura gives your whip an extra +4 DP, and means people start losing armour when they attack you too. Arguably, you could go more tanky and get Resist Pain instead of Acid Aura.
All in all... don't make that guy angry at melee range.
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Very good cbsmith, this is a strong and original building.
But Iīm not sure you have out munchkined my pixie, your def and iniciative are only slightly better than mine, and you are taking a big drain every round and spending time casting/boosting yourself in the first round. And you wrote magic 6, but with your aumentations it would drop it to 5, wich would make unwise to cast a 6F spell (increased reflex) everyday.
Plus, the build I suggested is not the complete char, it can do things, like summoning a 6F angry air elemental and have it follow/protect her during the run, for example. Also, with 10 spells she can be very flexible (and very good at something with specialization, mentor spirit, power and spellcasting focis) and because its attributes are so high, she isnīt a one trick poney, she can be good at some perception and charism based skills.
But I adimit that if adrenaline boost and incresed reflexes really stack, its worth thinking about losing astral projection and pay 5 karma to be a mystic adept with adrenaline 4.
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He has the prototye transhuman quality, so he has a free Essence point's worth of augmentations that don't affect Essence or Magic.
Pixies make good mystic adepts, because they have astral perception as a critter power, so you don't need to spend any power points on it. But it is better to go with Point Build if you make them as mystic adepts, because between 15 karma to be a pixie and 30 Karma for 6 power points, you barely have enough for a good mentor spirit. The Point Build version will be "worth" less overall, but since the Karma is in one big pool, you can get power points and positive qualities and bound foci.
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I originally missed transhuman quality too and was going to ask how he has ware and a 6 magic.
Too many qualities, hard to keep them all straight some times
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Drain shouldn't be too bad. The attribute boosts are only 1 drain, so you're basically guaranteed to not take anything. The big one would be Adrenaline Boost, which is 6 drain. With a conservative +2 boost to your body, that is going to be 12 soak dice right there, but with increased willpower getting you an easy +4 to willpower, now we're talking 16 soak dice. That means on average you lose 0.6 stun per combat turn from drain.
That said, I'm still not sure I got something that is really better than your crazy munchkin'd Pixie. ;-)
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I did some thinking on how to munchkin better with some help from nacro. Since it isn't covered by Prototype Transhuman (how weird is that eh? I'd have figured that ability would at *least* cover genetic modifications ahead of bioware... ;-), just take the magic penalty and work from there. Geneware is pricey, but it can be really helpful for this stuff. What I came up with was:
Race: Wakyambi
Priorities (Sum to 10): Attributes B, Resources B, Metatype C, Mystic Adept C, Skills E
Attributes: Body 5, Agility 3, Reaction 5, Strength 2, Willpower 6, Logic 2, Intuition 7[8], Charisma 1
Qualities: Drug Tolerant, Mentor Spirit [Bear] (Magician Powers), Astral Beacon, In Debt 15, Thrill Seeker (Daredrenaline)
Augmentations: Cerebellum Booster 1 (Alphaware), Nephritic Screen 1 (Alphaware), Daredrenaline, Narco, Reakt, Sync
Skills: Same as before
Adept Powers: Adrenaline Boost 5, Agility Boost 1, Body Boost 1, Reaction Boost 1, Combat Sense 5, Improved Ability Monofilament Whip 1
Spells: Same
Weapons: Same
Armor: Sleeping Tiger + Synergist Longcoat w/Elongated Limbs (I think I had that for the other one too)
I'm not sure if it is really better.
This guy trades off weak base agility and weaker magic for being able to charge himself up with drugs & attribute boost more. Ideally you'd bump up the nephritic screen some more to really get up there on resistance, but losing another point of essence just for that seemed hardly worth it, and I didn't want to give up on Reakt's defense bonus. Daredrenaline + having Increased Willpower available helps compensate for lack of nephritic screen.
The cool thing is how Narco gives you the flexibility to mix in your spell & adept power boosts with some crazy drug boosts as well. You can take crazy stuff like Cram & Kamikaze because of the -2 to stun damage (still hurts). Kamikaze alone puts you at 14 soak dice for adept drain and your initiative dice are high enough that there is likely little need to sustain an increased reflexes spell. Add in Body Boost and you are basically guaranteed +4 drain dice. Psyche + Jazz + Reaction Boost get you +6 on your defense tests and some pretty good initiative.
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Lol!!!
You managed to mix magic, adept powers, implants and drugs in the same char!
You crazy, chummer...
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That In-Debt 15 is definitely not worth it. That's going to kill you faster than anything else. Owing over 100k, +10k/mo in interest, and taking 5 physical damage when you miss payment, and needing to save 30 karma to buy off the quality eventually. The character doesn't benefit enough to succeed in the jobs to get the needed paydays.
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CHA-mage. Too Pretty to Hit. Boom.
Or just the mere fact that your mage probably has a high or even maxed-out Willpower stat to combat drain already makes going Full Defense very effective. So if you're boosting your initiative with Increase Reflexes (or something similar) you can always spend some of that extra initiative to keep from getting hit. It's nice to have a melee defense option trained up as well (Gymnastics, Unarmed Combat or a melee weapon), so you can always toss that in for melee defense for an extra -5 to your initiative.
I think when we talk about initiative we mostly talk about getting extra initiative passes, but Full Defense to keep from getting hit is an awesome use of extra initiative; those extra initiative passes won't do you any good if you're bleeding out, after all.
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CHA-mage. Too Pretty to Hit. Boom.
I think when we talk about initiative we mostly talk about getting extra initiative passes, but Full Defense to keep from getting hit is an awesome use of extra initiative; those extra initiative passes won't do you any good if you're bleeding out, after all.
Absolutely. Too Pretty to Hit & Agile Defender are all about Full Defense. I tend to look at Adrenaline Boost 5 as, "cheap defense booster that cost you 5 drain". ;-) For mages in particular, one extra attack phase tends to be worth a lot less than getting ~6-10 extra defense dice for all physical attacks.
I built a Dwarven heal mage where it was particularly good, because with 7 willpower I didn't need to spend any karma on Agile Defender or Too Pretty to Hit; I'd get +7 defense dice, sometimes as much as +11 if I had an increased willpower spell going on (spending a bunch of karma on Focused Concentration made that work better). Tough little guy to kill.