[Whiskeyjack]

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.

[Hobbes]

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.    

 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 ()
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

[zarzak]

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?

[Hobbes]

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   

[DarkSpade]

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)¥

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[zarzak]

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.

[Whiskeyjack]

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.

[Hobbes]

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.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

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.

[ZeldaBravo]

I see Logic as a combination of education and raw processing power of the brain, and Intuition is common sense, practical wisdom, and guile.

[Whiskeyjack]

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.

[Hobbes]

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. 

[DarkSpade]

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.

[Whiskeyjack]

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.

[Hobbes]

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.