[Umbrageofsnow]

I think I've got everything here but let me know if you spot anything wrong.

There are also a few questions I'm worried about:

• Is this character useful on most missions?
• Are my Knowledge Skills okay or too specific or too vague?  Are they classified correctly?
• The future character advancements at the bottom will probably be a couple of real life years for me, so I want to think of that as the upper limit of what he'll be capable of.  Any better way to advance him without putting too much off into the "fix this with karma later" zone?
• Any advice on my Contacts?
• Anything that is a big problem in my gear, had to cut a lot of corners for Resources E and not sure about my prioritization of ¥

Thanks in advance!

Priorities
A: Attributes (24)
B: Magic - Aspected Shinto Conjurer (Magic 5)
C: Elf (3)
D: Skills (22 + one skill group at 4 from Magic-B)
E: Resources (6k)

Attributes (24)
Body: 5
Agility: 4
Reaction: 5
Strength: 1
Willpower: 5
Logic: 2
Intuition: 5
Charisma: 8
Edge: 3
Magic: 6
Essence: 6

Initiative: 10 + 1d6

Mental Limit: 5
Physical Limit: 4
Social Limit: 9

Physical Condition Monitor: 11
Stun Condition Monitor: 11

Qualities
Low-Light Vision (Elf)

Too Pretty to Hit (-3)
Spirit Champion (-14)
Spirit Affinity (Plant Spirits) (-7)

Gremlins (Level 4) (+16)
Computer Illiterate (+7)
Did You Just Call Me Dumb (+3)

-24 + 25 (actually 26 in negative qualities but limit is 25) = 1 extra karma

Active Skills (22)
5 Conjuring Skill Group (4 free + 1 using all 25 starting karma)
5 Banishing (pool 11)
5 Binding (pool 11)
5 Summoning (pool 11)

6 Con (pool 14)
5 Negotiation (pool 13)
3 Etiquette (pool 11)
4 Assensing (pool 9)
3 Perception (pool 8  )
1 Automatics (pool 5)

Knowledge Skills & Languages (14)
N English
2 Japanese
1 Sperethiel

5 Chicago Astral Phenomena (pool 10 Street? or 7 Academic?)
2 Chicago Gangs (pool: 7)
2 Parabotany (pool: 4)
1 Classic Literature (pool 3)
1         Specialization: (Cyberpunk) (pool 5)

Contacts (24) Connection | Loyalty
Lothan the Wise (Talismonger)   4 | 1
Becky 99 (Ganger)                    4 | 1
Taxi Driver                                 1 | 4
Hardcopy Bookstore Owner       3 | 2
Commlink Repairman                 2 | 2

The Commlink Repairman guy might be a low-level hacker type or something, not sure how to phrase it.  My character mostly relies on him to fix gremlins'd commlinks though.

Gear (6000¥)
Street Lifestyle (0)

Steyr TMP (350)
30 Regular Ammo (60)
5x 30 Regular Ammo + Spare Clip (325)
2x 30 Gel Ammo + Spare Clip (160)
(He doesn't trust himself to reload under stress thanks to the Gremlins.  And his approach to using the gun is going to be lots of suppressing fire or full auto or whatever when not just being too pretty to hit.)

Armor Jacket (1000)

3x Metalink Commlink (300)
Rating 1 Fake SIN (2500)
Rating 1 Fake Gun License (200)
Rating 1 Fake Magic License (200)
Subvocal Mic (50)
Silver Credstick (20)

40 drams of Reagents (800)
(enough to bind a Force 2 Spirit thanks to Spirit Champion)

Starts play with
1 Leftover Karma
35 Leftover ¥ + (1d6 x 20)
 
Advancement
The first thing I'm going to do when I get some nuyen is upgrade my lifestyle and get off the streets, then buy all the reagents I can.

Karma expenditures, roughly in order:
2 karma = Sneaking 0 -> 1
7 karma = Assensing Specialization (spirits)
4 karma = binding a Force 2 focus of binding plant spirits (might need to wait a bit to afford it)
30 karma = conjuring skill group 5 -> 6

Background
Born SINless, he started out actually banishing weak spirits for neighbors and sometimes just negotiating with them, but eventually converted that into a business holding fake seances for wealthy idiots. When he got a key detail wrong, a widow had a detective look into him which led to the burning of his higher quality fake SIN and license to practice magic. He became homeless, spent the few savings that weren't linked to his old fake SIN on a gun, ammo, armor, and the best new fake credentials he could afford and decided to try his hand at shadowrunning out of desperation.

Technology has always gone crazy around him, so much that he never learned to use it.  He carries extra commlinks because he just knows they'll give out after a call or two. With people he knows he's more likely to send a force 1 water spirit with a message than call them.  This has also led to an appreciation of old books since modern entertainment tends to break on him.  He walks or takes a cab everywhere and takes a "spray and pray" approach to firearms.  With extra praying since they broke down on him remarkably often when he was practicing shooting beer cans on the edge of the CZ.

[BigSexy]

Here's what happens when you lay down suppressive fire:
You roll 5 dice.
If any one of them comes up 1 its a glitch.
The odds of not rolling a one on five dice is 0.401877572016461%
So 60 prevent of the time you glitch.
To top it off, 0.131687242798354% that you don't roll a 5 or 6..so bring on them critical glitches.

Seriously, dump the gremlins.

edit I forgot the Styer has a laser sight. So 6 dice: Ummm, you now glitch 0.665102023319616 but critical glitch less often.

Double serious, dump the gremlins,

[Kuirem]

Attributes

You should consider lowering BOD to 3 and raising AGI to 6, that would give you a nice dice pool to shoot and do something else than spirit summoning in fight. Also help with Sneaking and movement speed.

Qualities

Gotta agree with BigSexy, that Gremlins 4 is hard. Try to reduce it to 1-2 and find other negatives.

I think Spirit Champion is a bit expensive for what it does. Picking a Mentor Spirit instead and using the 9 remaining karma into Nuyen would allow you to get all the stuff you need (and even enough reagents for a Force 6 Spirit if you wish, 150 Drams x 20 = 3000 Nuyen). Boar and Bat are nice for generalist summoners.

Active Skills

Not much to say, skills looks fine for a Face/Summoner.

Start with some Sneaking and use Concealment power to help. Use Karma or lower on of your other skill if needed.

Gear

A micro-transceiver can be extremely useful to communicate with your team, the subvocal mic don't have the earphone.

It might be worth to pick up a better suit, even at the cost of armor. Ace of Cups is 600 more Nuyen and -3 armor but you get an extra dice for social. Though if you leave in the street you should probably stick with the Jacket for now.

You really miss a Medkit, especially considering that you aren't a full mage with Health spells. A Crowbar is cheap and can be quite useful but with your STR it won't make much difference.

Start play with

Why not use that leftover Karma to get 2k more nuyen to buy more stuff?

Advancement

The first thing you should do is get a better SIN, Rating 1 will be easily burned even by some clerk in a Stuffer Shack.

Now for your questions:

A face is always useful and to top it off you have summoning. You should be fine.

Knowledge skills seems ok, I think "Chicago Astral Phenomena" could probably be turned into "Astral Phenomena" with a Chicago specialization.

For contacts Fixer and Fencer are the most useful.

Fixer job is to know people, it's the contact contact! Need a Decker? Fixer can find one, need a job? Fixer will find a Johnson… of course you might need to pay more than if you had a Decker contact directly.

Fencer job is to sell your stuff and they can generally provide as well. They are generalist so they won't have as good stuff as having a military reseller… but you don't have to worry about finding the right guy to sell something restricted/illegal.

Except for those two it depends on your build, for instance if you use a lot of gun and don't have armorer it might be worth having a contact to do that, same for vehicle repair. For mage the Talismonger is an useful contact, someone within an official magician organization can also be nice to provide spell formula or stuff like that. For Face I found the Bartender, Club Owner or other contact working in social entertainment really useful to get informations. Finally contact in Police or Politics can have a lot of use for a Face that can make them spill the beans (without having to beat them, ain't a good long-term plan with contacts).

[FST_Gemstar]

Get some more nuyen. You are going to want a higher rating fake sin. Most folks wont run with anything less than an R4. A fancy armor may be nice too. 

I might switch some priorities. Elf B skills C and Magic D? It will let you max and spec summoning/binding (banishing anything worth banishing is likely to kill you) 

Or if you are willing to drop attributes down, i may go Elf A, skills B, Atts C, Magic D, Resources E.  Your character doesnt seem to be taking advantage of their physical stats, so you may not need them. ( i would drop Bod to 3, Agility to to 2, Reaction to 3, and int or wil to 3,)

 you will seem squishy at first, but you will be a better face and conjurer.  Remember, in a few runs you will have a stable of bound spirits to bring to a fight if need be. You can also take channeling as your first metamagic. When channeling a f6 spirit (your favored plant spirit will do I think) you'll get +3 to all physical stats and +1d6 initiative. When you need to be physically tougher, you'll be able to be. And tougher than you are with attributes A. You will also have lots of Edge to make sure you dont waste a binding on a bad roll or get too hurt from a bad Drain resitance roll.

[Umbrageofsnow]

Thanks, you guys have given me a lot to think about.  I'll post up a modified version of the character later today probably.  I don't want to come across as one of those people who asks for help and then just argues with all the help he gets (which is obnoxious) but I did want to respond to a few points, there's some overlap between you guys so I'll just group by topic not responder, you've all been very helpful.  There's so much going on with character generation that it's impossible to keep it all in my head and these are a lot of things I didn't think about enough.

Gremlins: Having Gremlins is pretty central to my concept of the character, so I'm definitely not going to dump it entirely.  I was thinking about decreasing the rating several times when picking qualities but felt like I was wimping out of my plan for the character (that technology just does not work for this guy, to the point where he goes to weird lengths to avoid using it.)  I could see putting it down to 3 or maybe even 2 though, that is pretty severe about the gun.  Also increasing the agility as Kuirem suggests or maybe putting a 2nd point into Automatics.  It's worth noting that I decided on having a cheap gun and commlink before I decided on putting Resources at E.  How likely should glitches be for the character to consider his gun disposable and unreliable but not be so useless that a table of strangers at a convention don't want me shooting anywhere near them?  Does Gremlins 3 and more Agility or something do enough?

Gear: A rating 4 SIN and Licenses would run me 11,600¥, which is fine at resources D but if I keep resources at E just seems infeasible to me.  And I really don't want to put something else at E.  Obviously I'll buy new fakes after a run or two, but I can't see changing this one.  I've seen comments like this around the forums before, which leads me to think that a Rating 2 is kind of a useless half-measure, is that true? Do stuffer shack clerks really run a SIN check?

Microtranciever is a really good tip, I hadn't noticed that distinction.

Yeah, it's really tough to think about a CHA 8 Elf being homeless, somehow making those avocado-colored plastic pants work for him but that was my thought for the moment.  Suit, SIN, Lifestyle, are all big expenses that he'd like to get back to and I was sort of thinking that'd be an easy arc to play out, even if I'm the only one who cares. Thanks for making me find these pages, I didn't notice this stuff in Run & Gun, before.

The reason I didn't want to convert karma to nuyen is that, assuming I'm going to get 1 or 2 sessions per real life year with this character and his only nuyen costs are the suit, the SIN, the lifestyle an reagents but he wants a ton of karma, I thought karma would be a significantly more scarce resource.  The FAQ implies that one Mission should net me about enough to get the Rating 4 SIN and Licenses and a 2nd Mission the suit.  So thinking about it maybe the SIN should come before the lifestyle but my point is that I'm considering the 4-6 Missions timeframe and by then I'll still be wanting badly for karma but will have enough money for everything I want.  So not converting the karma to money is me trying to play the long, but not all that long, game.

Priorities
The reason for the high Body is so that I can afford to take some drain when summoning big spirits.  Willpower is half of how I resist drain. Agility is the only reason I can hope to shoot straight with just 1 or a couple points in Automatics and I'm thinking using Silences and Concealment from spirits will help sneaking but I don't want to be terrible at it.  Intuition and Reaction are high beacuse I remember reading a few times that getting high enough initiative to alway get a 2nd pass was absolutely vital, but I guess they aren't doing much else for me.  (Side note: As a new person trying to read a bunch of advice from all over these forums, the number of absolute neccesities seems like it works out to way beyond anything possible at chargen if you listen to everyone at once. It's pretty overwhelming trying to guess what can be ignored.)

Elf B, Skills C, Magic D, gets me the same Edge and Magic and trades the 4 in the Conjuring group for 6 skill points.  If I decide to break the group up, it's 44 karma to get Summoning and Binding from 4 to 6 rather than 55 to get the group to 6.  Anyway I have 8 points in summoning and binding vs. 6 extra skill points so it seems like I'm worse off overall with Magic D, am I missing something?

Getting more Edge with Elf A and attributes B might be interesting though?

Banishing: I was thinking that banishing level 3 or 4 spirits would be plenty doable, am I wrong?  This seems like a separate question from Skills C/Magic D to me.

Initiating I wasn't planning to initiate at all, are there any that seem especially useful for me?  I hadn't seen any but there are so many options I might have missed something.  As far as channelling goes, the FAQ says it isn't allowed for Missions, just like the possession traditions.

Mentor Spirits I can't find the boar and bat mentor spirits, what book are they in, what do they do?  What about losing Spirit Affinity for one of them plus a point of Sneak at chargen? I guess it kind of depends on what spirits I'm going to summon most, but at the moment my thought is that I'll be aiming to have utility options with a Water Spirit with Control Weather and a Beast Spirit and Man Spirit plus a couple of Plant Spirits bound.  I think I want to have Plant Spirits around for Magical Guard pretty often (also Silence) but I was also thinking I wanted to use Air Spirits as what I summon in battle reasonably often.

Knowledge Skills
If Astral Phenomena (Chicago) isn't too broad that sounds great.  Just to check, would this skill let me know how to give directions to a spirit to have it deliver a message or something to someone while going through the containment zone?  That's one specific use I had in mind.

Contacts
I considered Fence but the reason I didn't get them is that it looked to me like with CHA 8 and decent Negotiation and Etiquette I could do a better job finding buyers/sellers and buying/selling my own stuff compared to the loyalty and connection I can start with. Missions say everything has to be done with buying hits, including when contacts roll Connectionx2, right? Am I doing the math wrong here?

I admit some of my contacts are mostly flavor so it's not like I couldn't afford to cut those down and put them into something else.

What sort of things do you rely on a bartender/club owner/etc for during legwork?

Thanks for all the help guys!

[FST_Gemstar]

Gremlins:

You are going to glitch a lot, especially for your low dice pool tests (Ex. automatics). I would say it would be unsafe to fire your gun. Even if you don't hurt anyone you don't intend to, you could make a lot of noise, shoot important gear, etc. The GM can do a lot with a glitch. I would say a high Gremlins character has learned not to carry a weapon, it's just not worth it. 


Gear: 
It's tough to be starting runner on 6k nuyen. I've never seen a Resources E character not onvert karma to nuyen. Folks argue about what are  essentials, but it's rare to do it with less than 18k, and usually it's more.

Missions lets you convert some nuyen to karma or karma to nuyen after each run (working for the man or working for the people). It's easier to buy things during character generation, especially high availability or forbidden gear, than it is in play. You can convert cash you get on a run to karma later. 

A R1 fake SIN make it difficult to even buy anything from any convenience, hardware, etc. store. All purchases from any legit business do a sin check. It's part of the deal. Most GMs don't go through the bother of doing SIN checks for legal purchases because people have good fake SINs and there is no risk of failure. A R1 fake SIN though is going to potentially not clear often enough. If it is found out, you have to burn it (along with attached licenses),  which means you wasted what little money you had on something that didn't do you much good.

Priority:

You don't use Body to resist Drain. Shintos use Charisma and Willpower. Body is used to heal damage later.   

The Elf A Skills B Atts C Magic D Resources E would be my reccomendations, but I offered the other one because it's tough to go lower attributes. 

Even Elf B, Skills C, Magic D, you get to forget about banshing, and use skill points to max summoning/binding, you are going to be using those more often, and if you want to summon/bind high force spirits, you are going to want them.  You don't have to use karma to raise summoning/binding, you just use your skill points. Shadowrun's chargen system privileges going as talll as you can during chargen. It is much easier to grow wide later. Better to use your skill points to max skills, and use karma to pick up 1 or 2 rank skills later. 

Your A Elf B Stats C Skills could work too.

I didn't know that Channeling wasn't allowed in Missions. So that physical buffing isn't going to work. I would still argue that you really don't need as much physicality. Elf A Skills B will get you higher Edge, more skills and better distributed skills for things you need, and let you invest in more in things like perception, sneaking, etc. to better stay alive. 

Mentor Spirit: my go to for an conjurer/face is Thunderbird. It gets your some Intimidation dice for your Face, and +2 for summoning Air spirits. If you have high Willpower and Charisma, you are not likely to experience negative effects of having the mentor spirit very often.   

Banishing: 
I have really tried and tried to make banishing work. It's probably ok against a low level free spirit, but you can summon your own spirit to fight such spirits very easily.  A bound spirit, forget it. It just becomes a battle of edge between you and another magician, and said magician can always just summon another spirit. Drain  from banishing is lethal for higher level spirits. Better to save your damage track to summon your own spirits. 

Initiation: 
If not channeling, then you're right, you probably don't need to worry about initiatins. Magicians (unlike poor technomancers) have scaling initiations, so the more you initiate, the better the benefits you often get.  So you have to decide if you want to keep on investing in initiations or just avoid them.  That being said, Masking tends to be helpful if you don't want to be clocked as a magician. Centering can be nice to help with drain.

Knowledge skills:
These are about you. They help make your character sheet come more to life. Have things that make sense for your character. It's ok not to have high ratings in them. I find it's better to have a diverse set at 1 or 1 and a spec. Don't sweat having the right or wrong knowledge skills. Pick ones that help you define your character better. 

Contacts:
Similar to above. As a face, your contacts are part of your arsenal. They can help flesh out and define your character, but can fill the gaps of what you can't provide. They are big a help in legwork, so having diverse contacts that know things you don't know yourself are what a face can bring.  Most folks do have their own fixers though. 

[Kuirem]

I want to add one thing. You don't need to be good at combat, you are already a Face and a summoner. Shadowrun isn't all about combat, even if you should expect some. There is 4 things that every shadowrunner should be decent at : Shooting, Sneaking, Seeing and Social.

Shooting because even if you can throw fireball there are situations where you can't (because you don't want to reveal you are a mage, because you have high stun and can't risk going unconscious…).

Sneaking because you do illegal stuff and because the opposition will always be stronger than you at a point, especially if you geek everything in your path.

Seeing because you don't want the opposition to sneak on you.

Social because in Shadowrun you ain't some murder hobos (well except if your character is build as a murder hobo, I'm not judging) and even the dumbest Street Sam will have to talk to someone at a point.

But now being decent doesn't mean throwing 12+ dice. I think 7-9 dice work well enough for all those, especially since you can Edge your roll if it's really needed.

So in your case you don't need a second initiative pass. If you were a combat character it would be mandatory but you are not so don't worry if you act a bit slow in combat, that's why you work in a team.

Something that could be interesting, in Gun Heaven some weapons have the Vintage trait. These weapon aren't compatible with modern electronics so it could be worth checking if mission rules allow these to ignore the Gremlins penalty. Also check if you can add this 'upgrade' on other weapons so you can pick whatever you want instead of being limited to those which start with it. Alternatively you could use a bow with Stick-n-Shock or Incendiary arrows.

Bat is in Hard Targets, Boar is in Howling Shadows. Boar give 1 extra service on a summon and Home Ground quality. Bat give +1 dice for conjuring spirits and +2 dice to navigation tests. Their advantage is that they work for all type of spirits but there are other good option like Thunderbird that FST_Gemstar mentioned. I find Spirit Affinity stronger than Spirit Champion (1 free service is really good, especially when you summon high force spirit that won't come with a lot) but it works too. I still recommend to try to get some karma into nuyen though.

Even without a knowledge skill delivering a message to someone shouldn't be any trouble to a spirit. Especially if you know the person and its location.

Bartender/Club Owner are a mine of informations about what's going in the Street/Corp/High Society depending on the club (Connection might reflect how posh is the club), they can also work as limited Fixer/Fence (they often know some) and finally they provide a place to meet with your team that isn't your home (in case you are followed). Nothing like the noise of a club to cover your conversation.

[Bushw4cker]

I think you should keep Gremlins 4 Quality, but take Pistols (Revolvers +2).

I would say Revolvers, as long as they don't have any electronic modifications, would have no penalty for a character with Gremlins. They have been around for hundreds of years, I would definitely not consider them a moderately sophisticated device. Your Average 20th Century Toliet is more sophisticated...oh... I just have a very evil thought about how to mess with the next Gremlins character someone plays when I GM...

I also agree with Kuirem that you should check out if vintage weapons would be ok for missions.

You Could spend a few Karma to get bound spirit(s) at beginning of play with a few services, normally I wouldn't recommend that, but could be a lot of help with Missions, and because you are aspected conjurer and spirits are your main thing. If it was me, I would spend 4 Karma and get two spirits with 2 services each.

[Umbrageofsnow]

A couple quick questions:

Can I use Full Defense (and thus Too Pretty to Hit) if I have less than 10 initiative at the start of the round?

How useful is using the Home Ground quality (if I went with the Boar Mentor Spirit) to negate 2 background count in Chicago.  I mean, I get what negating 2 background count does, but how often is this relevant to missions?  Is it the majority of them or something that comes up in one or two of them?

I had thought that you couldn't break up skill groups during the step where you add skill points, only during the step where you spend the bonus karma, is this not true?  Aspected is required to take 4 in the skill group they use.

How much control do Missions GMs typically give you over what your spirits do in combat if the service is helping in combat?

Assuming I'm going to buy a better SIN ASAP, what's the minimum level to play a mission?

Is it crazy to just ditch the gun, the ammo, and the point of Automatics altogether and just entertain myself during combat by narrating what spirits do while cowering in a corner somewhere?  Because that's where I'm leaning at the moment.  Otherwise this vintage weapon thing could be a good idea.  Maybe the lack of toilets with a street lifestyle is a blessing in disguise...

[Bushw4cker]

About Full Defense... the way I understand it you need at least 10... link below is best I could find..

http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=15273.0

Missions Background Count

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/20kkts/5e_background_count/

[Bushw4cker]

Ok let's say you pick priority B for Magic, giving you a level 4 Skill Group (Conjuring).

Then you take Priority C for Skills, giving you 2 more points for a Skill Group, you could raise your Conjuring to 6.

The only way you could Specialize, let's say Summoning 6 (Plant Spirits +2), would be to pay 7 Karma.

Not sure about the SIN question, but you might be able to take SINner quality and have legit SIN... but then you would have to be very careful about your illicit activities, assuming that would be allowed in missions, which I don't know...

I would go with the revolvers!

Whatever you do, don't give the GM any extra ideas about how your Gremlins might effect your daily life...You are going to have enough problems already..

[Bushw4cker]

Spirits are NPCs, so don't abuse them, and choose your words carefully.

[FST_Gemstar]

If you takr magic D, you dont get any skill group points.

[Bushw4cker]

If you takr magic D, you dont get any skill group points.

I would take Magic Priority D, Skills C, Race B. Attributes A (Bump Strength up to at least 2)

Bump Magic Rating Up to 6, Edge would be 3.

The Most Important Skill out of Conjuring Skill Group is Binding, then Summoning, Banishing is pretty much useless, you can do without it, especially if you take my advice and bind a bunch of spirits.

Summoning Tests = Magic x Summoning Skill vs Spirit Force
Binding Tests = Magic x Binding Skill vs Spirit Force x 2

So here is what I recommend for skills...

SKILLS (28/2)
Con 6
 (Fast Talking +2)  (Dice Pool 16)
Assensing 2
Perception 3
 (Visual +2)  (Dice Pool 10)
Pistols 1
 (Revolvers +2)
Binding 6
 (Your Favorite Spirit +2)  (Dice Pool 14)
Summoning 6  (Dice Pool 12)
Etiquette 2
Negotiation 2
Leadership 2

For Qualities I recommend Spirit Whisperer, and I think you should stick with original plan to take Gremlins (Rating 4),


The more I think about it, the more I think you should spend some Karma during character creation to Bind some Spirits.

This is what the book says about spending Karma to Bind Spirits at Character Creation.
1 Karma per service (Force of spirit is
equal to Character’s Magic Attribute
rating)
Can only have a number of bound spirits
equal to Charisma

These are the Spirits that your Tradition summons.
Combat: Air
Detection: Water
Health: Plant
Illusion: Beasts
Manipulation: Man
Drain: Willpower + Charisma


To Bind a Force 6 Spirit takes 6 hours (Plus however long it takes you to Heal drain), and uses up 3,000 Nuyen worth of Reagents. Plus there is a chance you could fail. Plus you are going to take a lot of drain, possibly even knocking you out and overflowing into Physical Damage.

I would read about each spirit and check out their powers and optional powers. With Force 6 Spirit you get to choose 2 optional powers.

PLANT SPIRITS
From the smallest blade of grass to the mightiest giant
sequoia, plant spirits represent all facets of the plant
kingdom.
B A R S W L I C M ESS EDG
F+2 F–1 F F+1 F F–1 F F F F F/2
Physical Init. (F x 2) + 2D6
Astral Init. (F x 2) + 3D6
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Counterspelling,
Exotic Ranged Weapon, Perception, Unarmed
Combat
Powers Astral Form, Concealment, Engulf, Fear, Guard,
Magical Guard, Materialization, Sapience, Silence
Optional Powers Accident, Confusion, Movement, Noxious
Breath, Search

SPIRITS OF MAN
B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M
F+1 F F+2 F-2 F F F+1 F F / 2 F F
Initiative ((F x 2) + 2) + 2D6
Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Perception,
Spellcasting, Unarmed Combat
Powers Accident, Astral Form, Concealment,
Confusion, Enhanced Senses (Low-Light,
Thermographic Vision), Guard, Influence,
Materialization, Sapience, Search
Optional
Powers
Fear, Innate Spell (any one spell known by
the summoner; Force is limited to spirit’s
Magic), Movement, Psychokinesis

SPIRITS OF WATER
B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M
F F+1 F+2 F F F F F F / 2 F F
Initiative ((F x 2) + 2) + 2D6
Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Exotic Ranged
Weapon, Perception, Unarmed Combat
Powers Astral Form, Concealment, Confusion,
Engulf, Materialization, Movement,
Sapience, Search
Optional
Powers
Accident, Binding, Elemental Attack, Energy
Aura, Guard, Weather Control
Weaknesses Allergy (Fire, Severe)
Special Spirits of Water move twice as fast when
in water.

SPIRITS OF BEASTS
B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M
F+2 F+1 F F+2 F F F F F / 2 F F
Initiative (F x 2) + 2D6
Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Perception,
Unarmed Combat
Powers Animal Control, Astral Form, Enhanced
Senses (Hearing, Low-Light Vision, Smell),
Fear, Materialization, Movement, Sapience
Optional
Powers
Concealment, Confusion, Guard, Natural
Weapon (Drain Value = Force Physical
damage, AP —), Noxious Breath, Search,
Venom

SPIRITS OF AIR
B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M
F-2 F+3 F+4 F-3 F F F F F / 2 F F
Initiative (F x 2) + 4 + 2D6
Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Exotic Ranged
Weapon, Perception, Running, Unarmed Combat
Powers Accident, Astral Form, Concealment,
Confusion, Engulf, Materialization,
Movement, Sapience, Search
Optional
Powers
Elemental Attack, Energy Aura, Fear, Guard,
Noxious Breath, Psychokinesis
Special Spirits of Air get +10 meters per hit when
Sprinting

If it were me, I would bind 6 spirits, then during game play, bind 2 lower force spirits. You can have a total of 8 spirits bound, plus you can summon an additional spirit to use for non emergency situations when your not worried about taking a little drain.. 

Here is what I would do....

Force 6 Spirit of Air (6 Services) Optional Powers: Elemental Attack (Electricity Attack), Noxious Breath (Stun Attack-when you want them alive.) - I would use this as your main backup spirit for fighting.

Force 6 Plant Spirit (4 Services) Optional Powers: Noxious Breath, Confusion. -Plant Spirit has Magical Guard which is nice for Spell Resisting.

Force 6 Plant Spirit (2 Services)

Force 6 Spirit of Man (2 Services)

Force 6 Spirit of Beasts (2 Services)

Force 6 Spirit of Water (4 Services) -Weather Control is pretty useful power.

Force 4 Spirit of Air (Bind during Game Play)

Force 4 Plant Spirit (Bind during Game Play)

For 20 Karma, you would have mini army ready at your call, You get Spirits, that normally, would be difficult for your character to bind.  You save at least 18,000 Nuyen, and you become a huge asset to your team.   In an Oh $%#@! situation, your character is going to have better chance than most to get you and your team out alive. One Force 6 spirit is a force to be reckoned with.. Six Force 6 Spirits....  I recommend you read Burning Bright if you haven't already. The main character uses spirits in that book to great effect, and it's set in Chicago. (some of the rules have changed a bit since 3rd edition, when the book was written... but still might be of some help.)

[drakir]

I like exceptional attribute when doing magicians. I don't like aspected versions because they are shafted by rules. Here's one of my versions of Face/Shaman. Worse Assensing and Perception than yours and no Spirit Champion but with many upsides.

Priorities: Attributes A, Magic B, Meta C, Skills D, Money E

Attributes:  Bod 3, Agi 6, Rea 5, Str 1, Cha 9, Int 5, Log 2, Wil 5, Magic 6, Edge 2, Init 1d6+10

Pos Qualities:  Exceptional Att (Charisma), Spirit Affinity, Too Pretty to Hit

Neg Qualities: 25 points of choice

Skills:

12(14) Binding 6 + spec

12  Spellcasting 6

12(14) Summoning 6 + spec

6 Assensing 1 (karma)

6 Perception 1 (karma)

14 Con 5

14 Negotiation 5

10 Etiquette 1 (karma)

7 Sneaking 1 (karma)

Spells:  7 of choice. (I would take at least: Heal, Inc Ref,  Imp Inv, Levitate)

Gear: 22000 nuyen to spend

Karma:  10 Logic 1>2, 24 Pos Qualities, 8 Skills, 8 money.

The 9 Charisma helps with Facing, Drain dice, Full defense, and more. Worth it IMO.