[Hobbes]

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.

[Hobbes]

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. 

[zarzak]

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.

[Marcus]

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.

[Glyph]

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).

[Top Dog]

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).

[JmOz01]

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

[zarzak]

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.

[Top Dog]

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.

[Kincaid]

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.

[zarzak]

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. 

[zarzak]

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.

[Kincaid]

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.

[Top Dog]

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).

[zarzak]

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.