[Blue Rose]

Elemental Focus is a quality from... Street Grimoire, IIRC.  +2 dice with a chosen element, but the drain is also of that element.

I'm pretty sure power focus and spellcasting focus stack.  I don't see why they wouldn't.  Of course, it's well into 'ask your GM' territory.

[Glyph]

Page 318, core book: "only one focus may add its Force to a dice pool for any given test."

Getting high dice pools basically boils down to a high skill, a high linked attribute, and dice pool modifiers.  For a mage, these modifiers are typically specializations, mentor spirit bonuses, and bonded magical foci.  I don't completely buy into the "less than 16 is not pulling your weight" and "7-9 for a secondary skill is a waste of points" attitude.  That said, mages, like deckers or front-line combat types, do benefit from a high dice pool.  They suffer modifiers from visibility and background count, and are making opposed dice tests.  So while 12 dice is nice, it is a good idea to at least get a specialization too.

[Senko]

Oh sure a high dice pool always helps its just looking at the enemies in the core book I personally feel the values of 12 and 7 for primary and secondary should work for a starting runner based on what you'd expect to face. Of course part of that is also what I can see a person being able to make reasonably easily experienced or not vs what you need a fair amount of skill/knowledge to produce and whether it requires specific choices. For example your build needs a quality (exceptional attribute) reducing the ones they can pick, then a special attribute point to raise magic as well, a quality from a non-core book, a power focus (costing money which is normally my mage's dump stat and I wind up short more often than not). Its not something a new player is likely to think of and it is something that requires a lot of trade off e.g. raising the 54k for the power focus. That alone is a minimum resources of D, karma for cash and not much else or a resources C with the corrresponding shortage of skill points or attribute points since you need magic at A.

[Blue Rose]

Magic at A is optional, actually. Special attribute points from higher priority metatype can get you back up. However, that's more a trick for adepts.

[Tarislar]

Starting with Exceptional Attribute, for Magic 7 and Spellcasting 6, with a specialization in whatever spells you care about most.  That's 15 dice without much effort.

Elemental Focus is another +2.  Rating 3 Power Focus, Rating 4 .Spellcasting Focus for your specialized class of spells makes another +7.

There's 24 dice before spending edge.  If you can swing an Edge 6 human with Magic 7, then when you spend edge, you're throwing thirty dice to cast your spell.  With explosions.  Ignoring limits.  And then you die of drain.

As stated.   Foci don't Stack.   ANY of them.  Not just those 2.

Also, Adding Elemental Focus is fine for a Combat Caster but if your specializing in any of the other 4 Spell Types that won't stack.



I can't say I'd like that kind of character myself.
Way too "Glass Cannon" for me.
You've shot a lot 1/2 your starting Karma for 1 die & lost a point of edge.
Dice pools that big means Overcasting is more dangerous than ever.
Investing in A-Magic, & at least C in Cash & Meta leaves you with crap for Attributes & Skills which means your unlikely to be able to do anything BUT cast spells & once the shooting starts the concept of Geek the Mage is even more important against a guy with 20+ dice pool.


I'd be a lot more inclined to go with something like Magic-C, Attr-B, Skills-C, Cash-D, Human-E & have a much lower dice pool of 14-18 depending on spell type.


At Chargen, the 2 casters in our last group had Combat Pools of 14 & 15 and they could dodge with pools of 14 & 10 when they were getting shot at IIRC.
They rarely had issues with connecting with a spell & dodging at least the 1st round of incoming fire.

[Blue Rose]

I never said any of this was a good idea.  Just answering a question as to how you get into the twenties for starting character spellcasting dice.

[DeathStrobe]

12 dice is way beyond what the average man should be tossing.

Joe Average has 3 to all attributes, and 3 skill. That's 6 dice. Maybe 8 for that one thing they do really well because they specialized in it. To get to rating 3 in a skill only takes 3 days and 12 karma, which I find a bit unlikely/unrealistic. But seeing how I'm the only person that cares about verisimilitude for that stuff I can let it fly for now.

The point is that 12 dice means they got 5 skill, 5 attribute, and 2 specialization. But the thing is, I don't find that realistic. Most people are lazy and have a hard time making time to work out or study to improve their minds. So I assume most people will be 3 or 4 in their attributes as a wageslave.

The reason a wageslave is a wageslave is because they're either proficient (rating 4) or at least skilled in their field (rating 5).

So I'd say the average wageslave is 4 attribute + 4 skill with maybe a specialization in their task. That's 10 dice. If they ever want to be more then just a wage slave, then they become indebted to the corp and get some ware installed into their meat sack. Which then could get them to 12. So that might make some sense actually.

Okay, I guess 12 dice can work, but I wouldn't go higher than that. As that'll start to get up to the corp exec and special forces dice pool ratings at something like 14-16 dice. Over 16 we're looking at elites.

[Blue Rose]

I love how, over the course of that post, you basically came to exactly what I was saying with the rule of 12.

[Glyph]

The sample contacts in Run Faster make a pretty decent baseline (note that they are noticeably lower-powered than the ones in the core book).  I still think your average wage slave would be more around 8-9 dice for his/her specialties.  12 dice, you're looking at a competent office manager, or the person the other office workers go to for help.  4 dice, you're looking at the boss's nephew.

[Senko]

Which to me should mean a starting runner can have 12 dice and function fine but instead there's a strong pressure on the boards for 16+ as a minimum at least in the threads I've seen.

[Blue Rose]

It depends on the game and the group. That said, Shadowrun is a game that greatly rewards specialization. Everyone on the team has a job that everyone else relies on them for. As part of the team, you need to be reliable. And you're facing challenges beyond what the average wage slave will.

16 is not a hard benchmark. 6 in your most important stat, 6 in your most important skill, a specialization in whatever you'll be using that skill for most, and something, anything, be it 'ware, chems, gear, or qualities, to give you a +2.

It isn't hard to hit that for your main shtick with any character. And protagonists are held to a higher standard than middle management.

[Senko]

Well that's true too I'd even say it punishes someone trying for a generalist build unless you have an insane amount of karma or really know the system and build to mechanics more than. Role playing.

[Blue Rose]

The eternal problem with the jack of all trades has always been being a master of none.  And Shadowrun punishes that generalist who doesn't get a niche pretty hard.

If you want to be that generalist, you still have to specialize in something, to be your main party role, and you still have to be good at that.  Maybe less good, but a face getting 16 dice for a negotiation test while still having zots to spend on magic or rigging or underwater basket weaving isn't that hard.  But if you really want to be a generalist, you're probably best off getting high attributes, a lot of skills at rank 1, and Edge in the 5-7 range.

[AwesomenessDog]

Perhaps a second creme of the crop 30 dice pool is an elven, burnout, psyad, gunslinger:

Hard cap agility with expectional attribute and muscle toner 4 (with restricted gear) for base 13 agility. +6 hard capped (at start) shooting X skill +2 specialization, +4 psyad weapon skill boost, +6 with take aim and sharpshooter, +2 smartlink and you got a total of 33 dice before edge.

[Blue Rose]

Pretty sure the physad skill boost would cap at +3 at chargen.