[sophieheyes]

Hey guys, so this is actually the first shadowrun character I've created so I'm looking for some critique. Our GM is using a 350 BP system and we're can't buy anything over 8R unless our character has a legitimate reason for having access to it. With this character I'm trying to create a character who can cast spells, do some healing, and is really good with any creatures we may run into. Let me know if you think that's too much for one character. Also, we're playing in Seattle in the Redmond area, so if anyone has played there and knows some gear that might come in handy please let me know. I listed total BP spent for the gear but not individual gear prices cause I figured that would take too long. Thanks for any help.

Name:
Alias:
Race: Human
Sex: Female
Lifestyle: Low (splitting with a friend)


Attributes
Body     Agility   Reaction   Strength
3      2                 3          2
Charisma    Intuition     Logic   Willpower
3                  4        3                 5
Edge   Magic/Resonance   Essence   Initiative
2            5 (1 pt adept,)         6               7


Positive Qualities
Mystic Adept: -10 (tradition: hedgewitch)
Improved Concentration: -10
Negative Qualities
Sensitive Neural Structure: +5
Pacifist: +5
Sensitive System: +15
Allergy to strawberries (moderate): +10


Active Skills:   
Sorcery Skill Group  4
Pistols            1
Dodge            2
First Aid          3
Banishing       5
Perception      3
Arcana          2
Etiquette          1

Knowledge Skills
German:   4
Spanish:   4
Sperethiel:   4
Toxins:   3
Parazoology:   3
Magical Phenomenon:   3
English N


Spells
Detect Life Extended
Heal
Offensive Mana Barrier
Fix
Mana Bolt
Control Animal
Levitate
Calm Pack

Adept Powers
Animal Empathy (level 4)


Gear (8 BP)
Survival Knife
Spellcasting Focus (force 1)
Counterspell Focus (force 1)
Armor Jacket
   Fire Resistance (rating 4)
   Insulation (rating 4)
Novatech Airway
   Iris Orb
   Basic Common Use Programs
Printer
   Satellite Link
   Subvocal Mike
Contact Lenses
   Low light
   Flare Compensation
Medkit (rating 6)
Disposable Syringe
Antidote Patches (x2)
Trauma Patch (x2)
Magic Lodge Materials
Lodging (for one month)
Camera
Colt Manhunter
Regular Ammo (50 rounds)
Oracle Owl (pet my GM let me have)

   

Contact            C/L
Agatha (Talismonger)     3/5
Dorian (street doc)        3/4

   


Build Point totals:  350 = 170(stats)+40(magic)+108(skills)+20(+Qualities)-35(-Qualities)+8(resources)+24(spells)+15(contacts)

[Critias]

At a glance, you look like you're spread a little thin for one character.  You've only got 8-10 dice for the things you want to be good at, no Edge to back it up, a single IP, and pretty small pools for anything else (like just surviving plain old combat).

On the other hand, though, your GM is limiting you to 350 points, and will hopefully be tailoring the opposition accordingly.  It looks like a character that has some real direction and personality to it (even if I cringe a little at an allergy to strawberries), that you've got a good "handle" on (and know what you're after with the character), and that certainly has some potential for growth.  If your GM is scaling things down enough to make 350 point characters work, it looks like she'll get the job done.

One suggestion would be to drop Banishing entirely (freeing up a good chunk of your points), and just Manabolt spirits into oblivion when you'd otherwise want to banish them.  It's quicker and easier, even on a character that isn't scraping by for points.  Banishing's kind of a character creation trap, unfortunately.

[eshoup1]

I am not up to par on my healing knowledge... but first aid and the heal spell seems redundant. To the best of my limited knowledge once you use heal you can't
use first aid. But you probably already knew that and you are seeing something I am missing. Otherwise looks good.

[Critias]

I am not up to par on my healing knowledge... but first aid and the heal spell seems redundant. To the best of my limited knowledge once you use heal you can't
use first aid. But you probably already knew that and you are seeing something I am missing. Otherwise looks good.

Being good at both is still nice, though, because as long as you use 'em in the right order, you can REALLY patch someone up.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I agree with the banishing part and while I admit it really fits the theme you are going for I kind of question animal empathy.  Outside of devil rats, rats, dogs etc. you wont be bumping into many things to use it on and if that is where you plan on ending your adept powers it is probably better to go full mage.  Your spells handle the animal control stuff enough as is, the empathy is cool but probably isn't necessary mechanically.  It fits your character concept though so it is cool.


Also with the pacifist flaw I'd probably swap mana bolt with stun bolt.

[eshoup1]

I am not up to par on my healing knowledge... but first aid and the heal spell seems redundant. To the best of my limited knowledge once you use heal you can't
use first aid. But you probably already knew that and you are seeing something I am missing. Otherwise looks good.

Being good at both is still nice, though, because as long as you use 'em in the right order, you can REALLY patch someone up.

I knew there was something I was missing. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Charybdis]

I am not up to par on my healing knowledge... but first aid and the heal spell seems redundant. To the best of my limited knowledge once you use heal you can't
use first aid. But you probably already knew that and you are seeing something I am missing. Otherwise looks good.

Being good at both is still nice, though, because as long as you use 'em in the right order, you can REALLY patch someone up.

Pretty sure you can only use one type of healing on any set of injuries.

However as was recently pointed out to me, in SR4 you can use First Aid to heal Drain-inflicted damage (which Magical healing cannot do).

As for the rest of the PC, I've played several Mystic adepts and also think you're spread too thin (even for a 350BP campaign).

Having a banishing of 5 seems nice, however the drain in doing so will be intense, and basically take you out of the fight (3 Charisma is not going to be of help here), and as mentioned before, not much Edge as backup.

I'd recommend the following:
A) Drop Banishing 5 and get the whole Conjuring group @1  (-20 points, plus 10 points = 10 points net gain). You'll get access to summon some minor spitis which is always a helpful utility for any awakened to have (Watcher spirits are always nice!), and you can always raise the requires skills later if the campaign progresses

B) Get the 'Animal Husbandry' skill group @1 (Running Wild sourcebook, p.34). Your PC is obviously very much flavoured to be around animals, and these skills will mean that you actually have some abilities to assist (and stacks with the Adept Animal Empathy power)

C) Drop some of the the language skills knowledge skills. For a 350BP character, each BP is precious, and to utilise so many (for what I'm sure are GREAT background reasons) is going to hurt.
With Int+Logic =7, you get 14 Knowledge points for free, plus your native language. You've spent another 14 BP on top of that. I really recommend you just choose a few key knowledge skills, and if you really want, take the 'Bilingual' quality (5BP, Runners' Companion' p.96) to get a second native language listed (no skill points required).
If you're desperate for more knowledge skills, grab a few cheap KnowSoft programs on Magical Phenomenon etc. They're legal, cheap and will save you BP
So, if you've spent all 14 points, plus 5BP on a second language, you have a net gain of 9 BP.

D) Items: It seems odd for a low power PC to use money (and karma) on a couple of low rating Foci. Recommend dropping these and spending the money (and bonding BP/Karma) somewhere else

E) Spells... too many for a Mystic Adept. With 1 initiative pass and not a lot of Drain capability you will have neither the time nor inclination to sling this much mojo.
- The Fix spell sounds nice, but in play is incredibly hard to use for a beginning character. You need 5 successes to fix anything technological, and with Spellcasting/Magic rolling 8-9 dice (11 with Edge) you're likely better off giving it to someone with some tech skills to fix it. Drop this spell (net gain 3 BP)
- Control animal/Calm Pack. Again, Stretching yourself too thin, and doubling up. Choose one of these and learn the other at a later stage during the game (net gain, 3BP)
- Levitate/Heal These are excellent utility spells, so keeping these makes sense.
- Manabolt: Change this to a Stun bolt. The drain is lower, and it gives you a non-lethal way to deal with opposition (and it's just as effective as a Manabolt against spirits/paranormals! ). If you really want to kill something, stun bolt them twice so that the Stun damage overflows into physical....
- Offensive Mana Barrier. I don't know why you're using this? It's an intensely draining spell, and may keep out minor spirits/dual-natured creatures, but otherwise do very little (apart from pretty much knock you out from drain). Recommend dropping this spell (net gain 3BP)
- Increase Reflexes: Grab this spell. Sustain it if you can, or pick up a R3+ focus during game with cash/acquisitions. This will give you extra initiative passes, which will double/triple/quadruple your productivity if caught in a fight. This should be a mandatory spell (net loss, 3BP)

So, with the recommendations above (if you take them), you'll have 13BP more to spend (enough for another attribute point and another spell), but will still be able to rock the house with your utility and animal powers.

Of course, feel free to ignore any/all fo the above. They're just suggestions and at the end of the day, you have to play the PC YOU want. Have fun!

[baronspam]

Actually, you can only heal a set of injuries with first aid or Heal once, but there isn't a rule that says you can use both.  There was a long, slightly acrimonious thread over this a couple of months ago, and the general upshot was that the best healer in the game would have both a solid first aid skill and magical healing.  Apply first aid first, then apply healing to the remaining wound. 

[sophieheyes]

Thanks for all the comments guys, especially on the banishing. I've been kind of struggling on the whole spirit front. The tradition my character is following, hedgwitch (drain is intuition+logic), is pretty cautious of summoning spirits so initially I wasn't going to do anything with it but I thought banishing might come in handy. However, it might be beneficial just to go ahead and get the whole group or just drop it entirely, I'll have to think on it some more. Also, thanks for the tip about switching stunbolt for manabolt. It does fit with the pacifist outlook a lot better. Oh, and on the comment about knowledge skills, you mentioned that since my Int+Logic is 7, I get 14 free knowledge points. The core book, however, says that it's actually your Int+Logic x 3 so that would be 21 which is what I had. But I do agree on the thought that I probably don't need three languages.

[Charybdis]

Oh, and on the comment about knowledge skills, you mentioned that since my Int+Logic is 7, I get 14 free knowledge points. The core book, however, says that it's actually your Int+Logic x 3 so that would be 21 which is what I had. But I do agree on the thought that I probably don't need three languages.

And after years of playing this game, and 1,000+ posts, I've been outruled by logic! Oh the horror! o.O

You are indeed correct, it's (Logic+Intuition) x3, and I have erred on the calculations.

+1 to you

[Walks Through Walls]

For hedgewitch the drain is Wil+Int so the low charisma isn't a big deal for summoning since in 4e the summoning group drain is the same as
spellcasting. However 8 dice to resist any type of drain isn't ideal and will limit how much mojo you sling.

I'm not sure taking mystic adept over full blown mage just for the animal empathy is really worth the trade off in my opinion. Unless you have a
character concept reason for it you could drop the magic to 4 upgrade to full mage and gain 5 BP which like several people have said would
be very useful. If you want to keep it maybe cut back the level a bit and pick up something else to go with it.

Mystic adepts are always point short in trying to fill two types, but at 350 BP this is even more pronounced.

[UmaroVI]

Is Focused Concentration what you mean by Improved Concentration? That quality is a bad purchase - drop it and buy +1 Intuition, which gives you strictly better benefits.

Pistols 1 is a waste of your points. With 2 agility and 1 pistols, all firing a pistol does is make you likely to critically glitch and shoot yourself/a teammate. Drop it; just stunbolt people.

Banishing is as mentioned crap. Don't take it, and don't take the Conjuring group either - just buy Summoning and/or Binding separately. Banishing sound good, but it isn't. It is at best the ability to waste actions and more likely the ability to make your head explode.

Rating 1 foci aren't worth it. Ditch them. You're better off saving up karma/money in game for a few good foci instead of a lot of crappy ones.

All the above are IMO "no-brainer" choices. I'm also going to recommend a restructuring of your powers and spells somewhat, based on your stated goal of cast spells, heal, chill with paracritters.

If you follow the above advice, you will have gotten back 4 (pistols) + 20 (banishing) + 4 (nuyen cost of foci) + 2 (bp cost of binding foci) points, giving you 30 to redistribute. Animal Husbandry 5 will help you a lot more with animals than Animal Empathy (20 points). Then take a Mentor Spirit; I would recommend Sun [Street Magic], choosing Guardian and Health. Lastly take Summoning 1 (4 points) and spend the last 1 point on another 5000Y of gear. I'll get back to the gear.

A final note: being human, rather than an orc, is costing you; you could be an orc, not lose anything, and gain +1 body, +1 strength, and low-light vision for free. If you actually want to be human and are OK with paying for that, then do whatever floats your boat, but just fyi.

Now for spells and powers: ditch Animal Empathy and grab Heightened Concentration [Digital Grimoire]. This is a flexible power with a lot of applications; one of the most helpful of which is ignoring Sustaining penalties up to your Magic rating (so 2 spells with no penalty, or 3 with a -1 penalty).

For your spell selection: Improved Reflexes (sustain this on yourself), Increase Reaction (ditto), Heal, Levitate, Stunbolt, pick any single-target P-damage elemental spell (<- not having this means you cannot hurt drones or vehicles), Calm Pack (I assume you want this for RP reasons), then I would take something of general usefulness like Improved Invisibility, Trid Phantasm, or Physical Mask for your last slot.

Now, for gear, get yourself better armor.

If you are:
1) Staying human, not using WAR!: Form Fitting Body Armor (wear this under your armor), SecureTech PPP System leg and arm casings, forearm guards, shin guards [both these are in Arsenal], leather jacket. Now you look casual, but are sporting decent armor.

2) Staying human, using WAR!: FFBA with Softweave, then wear Actioneer Business Clothing and PPP forearm guards and shin guards. If you don't like wearing a suit, instead use Globetrotter Heavy Armor Clothing [Arsenal] and throw on the PPP leg and arm casings as well.

3) Orc, not using WAR!: as 1), but replace the leather jacket with a stylish Aces High Jacket [Arsenal] and add on a Vitals Protector for that "not getting shot in the balls" look.

4) Orc, using WAR!: FFBA, PPP forearm guards, vitals protector, leg and arm casings, and one piece of 6/4 armor; your options (based on your preferred style) are Mortimer of London Ulysses Line (Arsenal), Globetrotter Line camouflage jacket, armor vest, chameleon suit, lined coat. I would wear the lined coat personally but whatever floats your boat.