[Onion Man]

v5 posted.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[Onion Man]

Really?

Nobody criticized a character that I and my home group have now found multiple flaws in, including me brainfarting and choosing a spell that explicitly doesn't exist?

[Makki]

ok, some things I don't like:
-neither Bear nor Shark are in the voodoo loa in Street Magic, I guess that doesn't really matter if you have your own interpretation
-Edge 1 is hard to survive, together with Bad Luck, you better not leave your room...
-Decrease Reflexes is a really useless spell, so is Increase Reaction without a sustaining focus
-You call it a touch mage, but don't have a lot of touch spells.
-Drop Blades, Unarmed is enough. You need only one melee skill, and you need Unarmed for your spells.
-Perception and Gymnastics are missing
-Drop Str by 1, won't change your damage

[Onion Man]

Thanks.  I'll be putting together a second draft later tonight with some of those changes in there, and some changes that one of my home players found that were numbers relevant.

It looked to me like bad luck worked best with low edge and was a greater risk with high edge.  Could you maybe explain where I went awry in my reading?

[Makki]

Bad Luck is never good. Independent of you Edge score. Sure, if you have a lot of Edge, you will use Edge more often and therefore you have to roll the Bad-Luck-die more often, but the chance of critical failure is still always 1/6. But with a very low Edge score you won't even have the chance to save yourself from death/loosing a limb/or whatever the GM deems for your critical glitch in the first place.
For example: you're in a hurry leaving the crime scene. there's an obstacle you have to jump over it. Agi-1 dice, 11% chance of breaking a leg.
Now with Edge 1, there's a chance you already spent it and you're a sitting duck, waiting for LS. With some Edge left and Bad Luck there's a 83% chance you can downgrade the critical to a normal glitch and hobble into safety

[Sliver]

- I usually get only 2-3 edge, there are better negative qualities that aren't such a detriment to the character
- Get rid of blades, and increase unarmed to 5 (While downgrading Spellcasting to 5). If your character's spells are based on touch, then a high spellcasting is useless if your unarmed isn't very good.
- Get more spells, especially touch based ones if that's the character. There are plenty more touch spells for you to utilize.
- Increase your Agility, a Body of 6 is unecessary. a higher dice pool when using unarmed is important.
- As said before, lower strength. Don't need it since all you're doing is getting the touch in
- Get rid of the cane and weapon focus.
- Get some sort of long-range weapon. Perhaps a dart gun or smg under a coat.

[James McMurray]

A Reaction of 2 is just begging to be killed, especially for a character whose combat skills require him to be up in the thick of things.

[Onion Man]

A Reaction of 2 is just begging to be killed, especially for a character whose combat skills require him to be up in the thick of things.

Don't I use unarmed to evade melee attacks and gymnastics (it's going to be in the second draft) to evade ranged attacks?

[Sliver]

A Reaction of 2 is just begging to be killed, especially for a character whose combat skills require him to be up in the thick of things.

Don't I use unarmed to evade melee attacks and gymnastics (it's going to be in the second draft) to evade ranged attacks?

Yes, you may use unarmed to parry melee attacks. However, ranged attacks are dodged with reaction only

[Onion Man]

hmmm.  Mr M was saying something about grabbing the martial artist quality out of Arsenal to use gymnastics to dodge ranged attacks before.  Guess I have yet another edit of substance to make.

Edit: Seems that Mr M misread the use of gymnastics dodge.  I've got pretty mixed feelings about saccing complex actions to dodge when Jolly's main role in combat would be using complex actions.

[Onion Man]

Name: (doesn't have one yet)
Tag: Jolly Man
Metatype: 20 pts
   Ork                            (20 pts)
Attributes: 230 pts (250)
   Bod 5                           (10 pts)
   Agi 4                           (30 pts)
   Rea 3                           (20 pts)
   Str 5                           (20 pts)
   Cha 4                           (30 pts)
   Int 3                           (20 pts)
   Log 2                           (10 pts)
   Will 5                           (40 pts)
   Ini 5
   Low Light Vision
   Magic 5                           (40 pts)
   Edge 2                           (10 pts)
Qualities: 5 pts (255)
   Magician                        (15 pts)
   Mentor Spirit (Bear), I know it's not an official Loa, I'll have the fluff   (5 pts)
      refluffed before origins to justify the use
   Sensitive Neural Structure                  (-5 pts)
   Sensitive System                     (-15 pts)
   Prejudiced (Politicians, Outspoken)               (-10 pts)
   Martial Arts (Capoeira, +1 die to gymnastics defense)         (5 pts)
Active Skills: 100 pts (355)
   Unarmed Combat 5                      (20 pts)
   Summoning 4 (Spirits of Man)                  (18 pts)
   Spellcasting 5                        (20 pts)
   Influence Skill Group 2                     (20 pts)
   Counterspelling 2                     (8 pts)
   Assensing 1                        (4 pts)
   Enchanting 1                        (4 pts)
   Gymnastics 1 (Dance)                     (6 pts)
Knowledge skills and languages: (15 free points) 0 pts (355)
   English N                        0 pts
   Breakdancing routines (Interest) 3               6 pts
   Seattle Club Scene (Street) 3                  6 pts
   Orzet (Language) 1 (Trog dialect)               3 pts
Connections: 8 pts (363), from Seattle Season 4 Connections
   Laurent Nazaire, Dwarf Fixer (C5, L3)               (8 pts)
Spells:   21 pts (384)
   Death Touch C      Touch, damage v willpower         (3 pts)
   Stunball C      Area, stun               (3 pts)
   Increase Reflexes H   Touch, +Initiative passes         (3 pts)
   Increase Reaction H   Touch                  (3 pts)
   Decrease Body H   Touch                  (3 pts)
   Heal H         Touch                  (3 pts)
   Increase Charisma H   Touch                  (3 pts)
Misc: 3 pts (387)
   Bond sustaining focus                     (3 pts)
Gear: 13 pts (400)               65000 NY      (13 pts)
   Magical Lodge Force 5            2500 NY
   Sustaining Focus Force 3 (Cane)         30000 NY
   Mortimer of London, Greatcoat Line      3000 NY
   Novatech Airwave Commlink (Novatech Navi)   2750 NY
      Tacsoft 2            6000 NY
      Empathy Software 4         2000 NY
      Browse 3            150 NY
      Analyze 3            150 NY
      Command 3            150 NY
      Encrypt 3            150 NY
      Reality Filter 3            150 NY
      Scan 3               150 NY
   Healing Fetish (Decrease Body)         500 NY
   Combat Fetish (Death Touch)         200 NY
   Ruger Super Warhawk (entirly for show)   250 NY
   2 Spare clips               10 NY
   Concealable Holster            75 NY
   10 Gel rounds               30 NY
   10 Stick n shock rounds            80 NY
   30 Regular rounds            60 NY
   Fake Sin 4               4000 NY
   Fake License 4 (Combat Fetish)         400 NY
      (Super Warhawk)         400 NY
      (Sustaining Focus)         400 NY
      (Shock Glove)            400 NY
   Simrig (Channel 1,2,3)            1000 NY
   Glasses 4               100 NY
      (Image Link)            25 NY
      (Thermographic, Channel 4)      100 NY
      (Flare Compensation)         50 NY
   Earbuds 3               30 NY
      (Audio Enhancement 1, Channel 5)   100 NY
   Micro-microphone (Channel 6)         50 NY
   Lifestyle: 15LP, 1 month            5000 NY
      Comforts: Low 2LP
      Entertainment: High 4LP
      Necessities: High 4LP
      Neighborhood: Low 2LP
      Security: Middle 3LP
   Shock Gloves               200 NY
   Gas Mask               200 NY
   Backpack               250 NY
   2 Bust a move drones (possession targets)   700 NY
   Dodge Scoot (Lame. I know, but a man has   3000 NY
      got to get around and I'd rather
      have something cheap and
      disposable than nothing at all)
   Reasonably stylish breakdancing clothes      340 NY

Edit: One of my local players noticed that I didn't have analyze, tweaked the price of my plain clothes and added analyze to fix that glaring misstep.  Guess that makes this v2.1

[Sliver]

These are the things I would do to make the character better

- Decrease body and strength to 4. Having a body of 4 with decent armor is plenty of defense. And you will never, ever be using strength to deal damage. You would be just as deadly with a strength of 1, so why is it at 5? Make it 3 or 4, if that
-  Increase Reaction by 1 with those points you just saved
- You got a commlink but no skills for it. Get some skill groups, man
- Still get some more interesting spells. This is your only way to attack, so check out the illusion and manipulation spells. Those have touch versions that reduce the drain.
- Don't need the increase charisma spell. The fact that you're using touch spells (which reduce drain) and with a high pool for resisting already, it's just unecessary.
- Get a skill for your Ruger. Having a ranged weapon that you can use is definitely useful in the end. Even if you only get 3 in that skill, it's still useful.
- I'd get some more uses other than just combat. Sitting around waiting for combat and not doing anything else can get old real fast. Increase your influence skill group, you'll have more to do

[Onion Man]

Thanks everyone.  You guys have been incredibly helpful.

I've got some business to attend to around the homestead, but I'll polish the build off a little later in the afternoon and bounce it off the the guy I'm heading to Origins with tonight or tomorrow.  I wasn't all that impressed with the illusion and manipulation touch spells on my first read through, but I'll take your word for it and give them a second consideration.  I'm really not sure what to expect out of a con mission, in the local game I'm in we have a gnome (and a Johnson) that keep us up to our gills in combat and near combat situations (and he's the most experienced player at the table), so I've been operating under the impression that my first shadowrunner was built a little to fluffy and without enough muscle to get through life.

I'll probably put v3 up here when I get it done for another round of "Please help me get to Origins with a character that will be fun to play and effective at the same time" (NML, my rigger is a ton of fun to play but isn't necessarily all that effective, I half expect him to die a horrible death by falling out of the van or drowning in shallow water, but meh.  I live and learn).

[Onion Man]

I had a day of "sick as a dog" and then a day of busy with appointments and getting together with the guy I'm headed to Origins with, and both of our character concepts have gotten a lot more concrete and a LOT more efficient, thanks largely to the excellent advice here and in other threads at this community.

Expect a v3 to appear as a likely final version sometime tomorrow morning, but this insomniac is about to finally get some sleep after 4 days of awake thanks to a finally refilled prescription.

"Baron Jolly" will be up for one more round of criticism, this time with some background, some character, and some outside the game text details on Haitian Vodou.  Thanks for all the input, you guys have been invaluable in making a character I think I'll be able to be proud of.

[Crimsondude]

 CAN YOU TRUST VOODOO-MAN??? NO!!!!!!!