Shadowrunner team guide
Warning don't read if you don't want to trivialize any sane game content your GM may throw at you. This is intended as a thought exercise, or something hilarious to pull at a throw away Shadowrun Con game. Using this as an actual team in a real game will likely result in fairly degenerate game situations. You've been warned.
So the basic set up is Combat Decker, Elf Face Shaman, and N number of Mysad Combat mages where N = Number of Players minus 2. Sorta works for a team of 3, works really well for a team of 4, pretty sure a team of 5 will make a grown GM cry.
Chapter 1: Meet the Johnson
Before the meet the Mysad Combat mages will buff the the Face and the Decker. Increase Charisma, Increase Intuition, and whatever else. Face will do social stuffs, Cha 8, Skill 6, Spec +2 = 16 dice base, plus buffs, plus Totem, minus Background count. Decker and Face then combine to rock out the legwork phase. Mechanically the Mysad Combat Mages are fairly passive during this phase, sustaining buffs and contributing teamwork checks where they can.
Note: Mechanically Passive does not mean sit there and do nothing. They can if they want, but nothing is preventing role playing contributions.
Note on Chain Buffing: First things first, meet at an area of low to no background count. Cast your Increase Drain stat buffs on each other first. Pharma Grade Pyhce to lower sustain penalty to 1. The Increase Charisma on the Face will be physical drain. This could be a bonus because you'll be splitting your drain between two tracks : ) It goes something like this, Shaman buffs Willpower of Mysad B and possibly A. Mysad A buffs Drain stat of B. B buffs Shaman's Charisma. Mysad A and B roll out intuition buffs for the Decker and Face.
Chapter 2: The Run
To the run! Decker owns a Van or SUV, Mages pile in and begin creating Alchemical Preperations, and summoning Spirits. If necessary rest to recover fatigue unless under a serious time crunch. Again the Face should buff the Mysads Willpower for drain.
Invisibility on Decker and Combat Mysads along with whatever buffs the Mysads can sustain without penalty. Elf Face Shaman throws buffs out until penalties get too much to cast more buffs. Someone gets a spirit to conceal. Elf Shaman goes Astral, team begins run.
During the run the Astral shaman will be providing spell defense, ordering spirits and cleaning up astral signatures. All diceless actions. Mechanically passive, but not necessarily doing nothing, can still role play and interact.
The Decker's vehicle will be autopiloting around the block (or whatever), with a drone or two as cover, with the Shaman's meat body inside.
If the target doesn't have Astral security then you've got a team of elite runners that are invisible, concealed, possibly silenced. If you can't quickly achieve your objectives under these conditions I don't know what to say.
If there is significant Astral security you're pretty much “going loud” as soon as you leave the van. At least as loud as a group of invisible, concealed, ninjas get. Unless the site has some crazy levels of magic security, you're going to be able to steam roll whatever shows up. You've got two Mysads and a couple spirits. Unless the Astral Response is overwhelming (Insect Spirit Hive, Cabal of Initiates, whatever), you should be able to handle it, and then it becomes a invisible dash to the objective and extraction.
Chapter 3: WTF!!!
And here is those degenerate game conditions I spoke of. Short of an Astral Security Dragon or a Hive Queen and a host of true forms in a high background count, this team should easily handle typical magical security starting runners will see. Once the runners have initiated and picked up Masking and Extended Masking even tough magical security will be possible to beat.
Even under conditions of high background count (4 +) this team isn't crippled, they simply become a Face with 16ish dice for most social skills, a typical Decker, and a couple of guys with decent stealth, perception and gun skills. Oh, noes! FWIW a background count of 4+ for an entire run is degenerate game conditions for starting characters. So is an alert prepared Dragon or Insect Hive. If you've got a standard priority build team of runners that can handle something like that I'd love to see it.
Chapter 4: Builds!
Actually the builds are fairly “Standard”, but here are some minor optimization tweaks and basic requirements.
Coordinate your buff strategy. Make sure one of the Mysads takes increase Charisma. Increase intuition and Agility should be covered, probably by multiple casters. Improved Invisibility, Silence and the like should be taken possibly multiple times. Split Binding and Alchemy skills between characters. Everyone should at least splash Assensing. And everyone should pick up counterspelling because 18+ dice of spell defense is funny.
Coordinate your spellcasting and totem bonuses. One caster should take Health, another Illusion, another Manipulation. You know how irritating it is that Alchemical preps and Spells each take a slot to learn, even for the same spell? No worries, your team collectively has 27 spell slots to spend. (Each caster should take heal).
Decker: Resources A, Skills B or C, Stats B or C, Meta D, Magic E. Really a typical decker build. The main thing to keep in mind is that you'll have access to buffs from the mages so your augmention budget can be spent with that in mind. If the mages are packing increased Agility, you can pass on Muscle Toner, if someone can sustain an Increased Reflexes you won't need an initiative boost. See where we're headed here? You'll have some crazy amount of Nuyen and Essence to spare. I'd recommend either tanky decker or skillwire decker. YMMV.
Elf Face Shaman. Elf isn't really mandatory, but its optimal. Magic A, Skills B, Stats C, Meta D, Resources E seems about right. You can really dump physical stats hard since you will rarely be physically with the team during any kind of running. Sustain vectors are important, Focused Concentration, Spirits, and pharma grade Pyche are all your friends. You'll be able to sustain 6 spells or more. The Face Shaman should consider Increased Reflexes too, at least for the Decker. And as mentioned previously Increase Willpower. Pain Resistance and Invisibility are all good picks.
Mysads: These builds get a little tight. You're going to want lots of everything, and you can't have it. Magic A, Stats B, Skills C, Meta D, Resources E, should get you by. 6 PP, Focused Concentration 3, Mentor Spirit, Skills to max Spellcasting, Conjuring. A gun skill, Stealth, Perception, Counterspelling, and Alchemy you'll want to some degree. With an effective 10+28 skill points you can get there. The 2 group points may be fluff skills, maybe not. Intuition tradition is recommended. Max out drain stat, dump str, cha, logic. Will, Agility, Reaction as high as you can get. Either go with an organic Agility boost or Initiative boost. Astral Perception. Then Combat Reflexes to taste.
As long as you coordinate your spell and Preparation picks to cover the basics you should be able to pick 6 or more spells in your chosen area of specialization. 6 magic, 6 Spellcasting, +2 totem, +2 specialization = 16 dice spellcasting. At least one drain stat, possibly both should be buffed at all times so you're looking at 15+ dice for drain most of the time.
Note on dump stats: Dump stat = whatever your table's or your personal min stat is. If that's 1 or 2 or 3, then so be it. Shuffling a couple stat points around isn't going to matter that much.
Chaper 5: Final thoughts
The exact details of the builds are really flexible as the idea is to coordinate spell selection to cover important augment bonuses so your team doesn't need to have several identical spells and to free up the Deckers Nuyen. By having one dedicated “Buff till you drop” character it frees resources and sustain vectors on the other mages. By always being invisible and concealed your team is free to hit objectives quickly. Even if the mundanes beat the illusion tests, they still need to beat the stealth tests. Really unlikely given the likely dice pools involved.
And by having multiple mages to cover the Astral plane, the runners can likely blow through any Astral security quickly. Leaving nothing but the physical and technological defenses that can typically be overcome by the mages. And with one dedicated Astral “Clean up” character, you're not leaving a lot behind.
