Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: baronspam on <08-30-11/1658:16>
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So, CanRay's magican thread got me thinking about magicians with a secondary focus on social skills. I am trying to come up with a list of ways to enchance social dice pools for magicians. For the time being, lets rule out adept powers, so no mysitc adept builds. I am wanting to maintain as high a magic score for spellcasting as possible. In no particular order, there are some things that might be useful. Note that all of these probably would not fit on the same character.
Obviously, take a charisma tradition and a high charisma score.
Increase charism spell, but with a high charisma score this requires a high force spell. A sustaining focus would be best here, but again the high force might be problematic. I suppose a five charisma, a restricted gear quality, and a r5 health restraining focus could work, but you could also just be an elf.
Edit: I am getting a migrane. Do sustaining foci go up to r5? Or do they max at 4?
Which brings up obvious point #2, be an elf.
Control Emotion might be used to bonus certain social roles, at the GMs descretion. Fear would bonus an Intimidation check, love or friendship might bonus a Con check, etc.
Some mentor spirits bonus particular social skills.
You could loose a point of magic to some bioware, get tailored pheromones, a voice mod, etc. I don't mind doing this on adepts but I am generaly loathe to give up magic on a mage. It depends on how much you want those social dice I guess.
First Impression Quality and Chatty quality work for anyone.
I have the feeling that this probably works better as an adept or mystical adept, but what I really want are options for someone who is a spellcaster first and a face with the resouces left over from that.
I am sure there are things I am not thinking of (have a headache coming on, not thinking clearly right now). What else can you do to a straight magician to make him a face?
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Emotitoys/Emotion Software if allowed.
The Mystic Adept option is very obvious here. Yes, you give up magic for blasting, but hey ho.
Honestly though, beyond the sky high Cha, right mentor spirit, and then spending a lot of skill points, I'm not seeing a great deal. However, between that and picking up a few positive qualities, you're probably hitting 15 on your best social quality straight off, 12 on the others, lifting to about 20 on the best once you've spent karma (if you do) and 15 on the others. Which is pretty good. It mightn't be amazing, but then, this is about a magician first, face second.
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Emotitoys/Emotion Software if allowed.
KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
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OK, in honestly, probably the best way to go is to make a Mystic Adept that walks the Way Of The Speaker (The Way Of The Adept (http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28_187_212&products_id=2753), Page 10 & 14.). Adept powers mixed with magical might.
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this is the very type of character i run...
im and (Dryad)Elf with 6 CHR
Shaman tradition, with the Moon Maiden as my Mentor spirit
with an Influence Skillgroup at 3 my base in Negotiation was around 14 dice
of course after getting the Emotitoy that went to like 20....
which is in my opinion fairly high for a starting runner
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My primary Missions character (and namesake) is a Christian theurge and a SURGEd Elf. Charisma 7 + Influence group 1 + Glamour = 11 dice. Throw in my capped Street Cred if they've heard of me (another 7 dice for most Missions negotiations) for a total of 18 dice. I'm not always the primary face (because there are some truly optimized faces out there), but I make a good backup face even with minimal skill.
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If you check my signature, the Spirit Medium is such a character, although Facing is secondary to casting. As a pure magician, really, it's more about "if you already have a 7 charisma, you can pick up Influence and be a decently good face for not much more."
The only other way I see as "worth it" is the Glamour metagenic quality (which requires you either be a Dryad or a Changeling). Emoticheese of course if your GM allows it, but really all that does is raise the "is a face" bar by 6.
I wouldn't get 'ware as a mage for Tailored Pheremones, but I could see getting them if you also want other stuff... 2 alphaware limbs, tailored pheremones, and a trauma damper maybe.
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I hate to say it, but teeny-popper type Hackers/Technomancers (Like /dev/grrl/) might be able to pull off the Emotitoy as it's the "In Thing" for them to have at that age...
And, well, if you make the little girl cry, then the really big Troll Adept is going to get very, very angry.
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No CanRay, you were right the first time. I completely agree with your 'Fire' stance and banned them in my game but mentioned them for the sake of completeness.
I am willing to listen to people saying there are reasons Runners might take them style wise, I don't have an issue with that.
The reason they are banned is that mechanically they are simply too good. Their power for cost ratio is simply absurd, both in terms of nuyen and downsides. So in the bin they went.
One option that hasn't been mentioned yet mind, is drugs. Risky, but will get you more Cha if you need it. Which leads to the amusing thought that cokeheads take less drain damage in Shadowrun. Afraid of overcasting? *snort* Not any more!
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It isn't a "Fire" stance.
It's a "FIRE!!!" stance.
Although it's never come up yet, one of my Mr. Johnsons when I run regularly shoots them with a Browning Ultra-Power (Silencer, of course) when he sees them at a meet, and docks the group 10% of their pay. "Unprofessional."
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How does a dead guy dock 10% of their pay?
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How does a dead guy dock 10% of their pay?
Never read any of my work, have you?
Obviously I'm talking about the one that's... "Slightly" touched in the head.
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How does a dead guy dock 10% of their pay?
Never read any of my work, have you?
Might've, I like lurking around the Fan Fiction section.
Obviously I'm talking about the one that's... "Slightly" touched in the head.
The Most Dangerous Prey expy?
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I do think Red Canti has a point though... I certainly think any Johnson who pulls a gun at the negotiation table has probably lost the moral high ground on calling people unprofessional :p
(And, of course, depending on group, has possibly lost other things as well).
edit: Using Emotion software also, while more expensive, probably isn't going to get noticed. If its allowed. Which it shouldn't be, on account of being broken.
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Any any Johnson that tries to blow an emotitoy off someone's shoulder, lapel, keychain, or where-ever the damned little thing is dangling from? Yeah. That's not a matter of professionalism, it's a matter of "return fire time."
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Reminds me of the SRM I ran where the Johnson was an extremely blatant neo-Fascist ... who hired a group consisting of exactly one human (who was, in fact, a changeling) for a mission. It didn't end well for her. The one human was the group's face, and she WAS pretty crazy, so I went with "she has the hots for him, even if he hangs out with dirty metas" so it made a little sense.
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I mean, I've got nothing against crazy Mr. Johnsons, I just think taking a shot at someone (or doing what can, and should, certainly be seen as taking a shot at someone) is going to result in the negotiation turning into a gunfight, period.
But I like crazy Mr. Johnsons. The most popular Johnson I ever ran was modeled -- in universe, mind you, thanks to bio-sculpting, personafix chips for speech patterns, skillwires for body language, literally modeled -- on Christopher Walken.
For posting his dialogue, I'd type up a couple of perfectly reasonable sentences, just doing standard Johnson stuff, detailing the job, the pay, that sort of thing. Then I'd go back and remove all the punctuation, and re-insert periods, commas, exclamation points, question marks, and italicized/emphasized words completely at random.
No one ever tried to negotiate with him for higher pay, they just did what he said. It was awesome.
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Any any Johnson that tries to blow an emotitoy off someone's shoulder, lapel, keychain, or where-ever the damned little thing is dangling from? Yeah. That's not a matter of professionalism, it's a matter of "return fire time."
Again, I said a certain one. And never made any claim to his sanity.
Maybe a HERF Gun?
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edit: Using Emotion software also, while more expensive, probably isn't going to get noticed. If its allowed. Which it shouldn't be, on account of being broken.
Just remember the golden rule, If the PCs can do it, the Johnson usually has a better budget with which to do it back to them. Negotiation is an opposed test by default, so what works on offense also works on defense. Still, scale the Johnson's social software with the level of importance of the Johnson. Personally, I have three blank d6s, just so my players hear a few more dice than are actually being rolled from time to time. It's scary how they can estimate how many dice I'm rolling from the sound alone, but that's what you get when you've each been gaming for about 20 years.
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edit: Using Emotion software also, while more expensive, probably isn't going to get noticed. If its allowed. Which it shouldn't be, on account of being broken.
Just remember the golden rule, If the PCs can do it, the Johnson usually has a better budget with which to do it back to them.
That is really the main objection that I have to emotion software, other than the completely skewed ratio of price to benefit. Anything that cheap and that helpful will just be used by everyone, and it ends up canceling out. The poor automatically fail social checks and with everyone else using it the number just balance, so why have it around from a game design point of view?
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Can we get away from Emoitoys and Mr. Johnsons being sociopaths and back to Magician/Face Combos?
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One begs your indulgence on this matter a little longer Mr. CanRay
edit: Using Emotion software also, while more expensive, probably isn't going to get noticed. If its allowed. Which it shouldn't be, on account of being broken.
Just remember the golden rule, If the PCs can do it, the Johnson usually has a better budget with which to do it back to them. Negotiation is an opposed test by default, so what works on offense also works on defense. Still, scale the Johnson's social software with the level of importance of the Johnson. Personally, I have three blank d6s, just so my players hear a few more dice than are actually being rolled from time to time. It's scary how they can estimate how many dice I'm rolling from the sound alone, but that's what you get when you've each been gaming for about 20 years.
Of course Johnsons can have it. But they almost certainly won't have it better than the PCs because its so damn cheap everyone will start with it at maximum. So all you achieve is everyone's taken it. Except people who for some reason haven't, and now suck. The long and detailed version of this mini-rant will have to wait but the point is, it is not broken because it gives the PCs power over all, it is broken as it offers too much power too cheaply and then skews the way PCs and NPCs behave in a boring manner. Which ties in with what baronspam says.
Anyway, plotting a course back towards the topic... although really CanRay, if you're going to introduce subjects as amusing as sociopathic Johnsons, you only have yourself to blame ;)
I do have a tiny thought actually on this - which is in some cases, the sheer fact you're obviously a mage could be useful towards Intimidation rolls. After all, there aren't that many Mages around. When someone calls lightening out of an empty sky to strike the ground between your feet, its probably quite frightening. Not that Intimidation ends up on a lot of social characters, which is a shame imo...
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He met the group once on the docks. The heat in town was getting too much for him, so he was going on a "calming fishing trip".
The only boat the group saw was a whaling vessel, and dock workers loading depth charges. Swallowing their courage, they asked what he was fishing for: "Megalodon. I did tell you I hunted big game."
He had a nice fish dinner waiting for them when they were done with the job, too.
EDIT: A Face/Magician would have been useful at that point as the Composure Test (Charisma+Willpower) would have allowed the character to actually try to negotiate, as the players were too scared of him to even try.
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Not that Intimidation ends up on a lot of social characters, which is a shame imo...
In a way it makes sense though. I mean the combat focused characters can cover the intimidation angle all on their own.
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Not without a good Charisma. Honestly, the scariest person in the group should be the one that looks least like a combat monster.
You know what those guys will do... What will the calm, quiet man in the suit going to do?
It's why "Heisenberg" in Breaking Bad can be such an intimidating character. 'Course, having a kilo bag of Mercury Fulminate that the gang thinks is Meth doesn't hurt matters either.