[boludo]

Hi,

I'm new here and have recently started playing shadowrun. After much hassle, houseruling, begging and pleading the GM finally approved the character I wanted to play.  I'd like to hear people's opinions on her. Note that she has been changed tons until I convinced my GM, and we're playing already. So I probably won't be changing any stats, but feel free to comment anyway. What I'm especially interested in are comments on gear, because I'm trying to figure out what she's lacking in that department and what I should be saving the nuyen for. My top favorites at the moment are: better Doc-Wagon-Contract and a really nice pimped car (which could cost up to 200,000 nuyen, so there's quite some saving to be done). Improving the lifestyle is also definitely a goal, but I don't know what shadowrunners can expect to earn usually and whether if I raised one of the lifestyle categories to luxury, for example, she could reasonably expect to be able to keep up with the payments. There might easily be some useful gear that is indispensable / really cool / appropriate for her character and personality type, and that I've overlooked. So anyhow, here goes, feel free to comment.

Houserules: The character has been generated with 450 BP instead of the standard 400, and has additionally received about 78,000 nuyen and 8 karma points to be spent, because the other characters were already more experienced. Connections were not bought with BP, but a free pool of Charismax2 points. No availability restrictions on gear. At least one firearms or Heavy Weapons Skill, and Infiltration, were mandatory active skills. GM heavily in favor of "addiction" quality (yes, he's a sadist). Fake licenses do not have to be purchased, they are considered to be included in fake IDs. Ammunition does not have to be purchased, it is considered to be included in characters' lifestyle costs.


Yuna Sato

Background
Yuna Sato was born in 2054 in Kyoto, Japanese Imperial State. Her mother, Haruka Sato, is a high-ranking exec for Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. Her father, Brian Sato, originally hails from Seattle and works in the public relations department of MCT. They had met, dated, fallen in love and gotten married after Brian had been assigned to work at the corp’s headquarters. Both were norms and it was quite a shock when they learned that their little baby girl was an elf. Nonetheless, Yuna had quite a privileged childhood and adolescence. Growing up in the sheltered microcosm of MCT’s Kyoto arcology, she enjoyed all the luxuries a girl could ask for. At age five, during a routine corp examination, her innate magical gift was discovered. Immediately arrangements were made to have her future schooling complemented by an education in the magical arts. She was a lively and carefree child who eventually grew into a teenager with strikingly beautiful features. The only thing which was lacking in her life were siblings – and her mother’s unconditional love. A traditionalist deeply ingrained in her native culture, including its metaphobia, every now and then Haruka would quietly watch her daughter as she played or did her homework, a look of disappointment and sadness in her eyes, which she thought her daughter couldn’t see. Why had fate not given her a human daughter, but one of those… aberrations of nature? She never voiced those thoughts… but Yuna saw them in her eyes. Some of her peers were not so discreet about their misgivings concerning metahumans, which initially Yuna tried to ignore, concentrating on her studies, hoping to make her mother proud after all. Luckily for her, her father was sympathetic to those problems and always offered advice and consolation, telling her stories about his native UCAS, especially Seattle, where metahumans in general and elves in particular enjoyed far greater tolerance. Also, the Shinto tradition into which Yuna delved more and more deeply offered not only magical knowledge, the ability to see the astral plane, cast spells and call forth local kami, but spiritual insight as well, from which she could draw some solace on days when she encountered particularly nasty remarks about metahumans. After all, was she not part of the harmony that connects all beings?
Yuna’s life took an important turn one night when she was 14 years old. That night, she dreamt of a woman, beautiful to behold, radiating joy and excitement. The woman told her that she had been watching Yuna for a while now, pleased by her burgeoning beauty and joyful spirit, and that she wished to help her advance on her path and guide her to greater understanding. At last Yuna recognized her – it was Amenouzume. According to the kannushi who tutored her in the Shinto ways, this kami had saved the world from near devastation when her frivolous dance had lured another kami, Amaterasu the sun goddess, out of a deep cave in which she had been hiding to grieve, leaving the world dark and cold. From then on, Yuna was visited by Amenouzume from time to time in dreams and visions, learning from her not only arcane secrets, but also the importance of joy, excitement and sensual pleasure, which stood in quite some contrast to her disciplined upbringing so far. Spurned by this, the subtle resentment between her and her mother, and the discipline ubiquitously imposed by the megacorp, she became what is commonly known as a rebellious teenager. What started as the wish for greater independence from her parents’ and MCT’s demands evolved in the following years into attitude, flings with boys, partying and drinking. Discovering and enjoying sex, drugs and rock’n’roll did naturally nothing to improve Yuna’s relationship to her corp-abiding mother. Arguments and fights started to increasingly take place in the Sato household. Things might have taken a different turn had it not been blatantly obvious that Haruka was much less concerned with the dangers to her daughter’s well-being than with the dangers to her own reputation in the megacorp. What worried her was not the prospect of her daughter endangering her health and good grades with drinking and partying, or even risking an unwanted pregnancy, but the effects her behavior might have on her own standing with colleagues and superiors and the prospects to her next promotion in the megacorp’s hierarchy. Again it was Yuna’s father who often stepped in to mediate between his wife and daughter, remembering well what it was like when he had been her age. Nonetheless, the conflict simmered.
For Yuna, having fun was not at odds with her curiosity and joy of learning though, and she neglected neither her Shinto tutoring nor her regular schooling. She learned that Shinto magicians who felt drawn to a kami in particular like her were the exception rather than the norm, but her mentors did not question Amenouzume’s choice. In spite of everything, Yuna increasingly learned to balance responsibility, tradition and commitment on the one hand and freedom, adventurous escapades and having fun on the other, eventually coming to believe that this is also part of the all-pervasive harmony taught by Shinto spirituality. This philosophy often put her at odds with more diligent and self-sacrificing corp employees, though, including, of course, her mother. As Yuna’s high school graduation drew nearer, her mother began questioning her about her plans for the future. Knowing that she did not want to spend her life with a career among the ranks of corp execs (or ‘privileged wage slaves’, as she secretly referred to them), Yuna decided she wanted to leave Kyoto and move to Seattle, to live in the city she had heard so much about from her father. The latter was supportive right away, while her mother initially resented that plan – until her father pointed out that any future escapades of Yuna would not fall back on her parents any more, and any of their colleagues and superiors who still secretly (or not-so-secretly) frowned at the pointed ears of their daughter would soon shut up after she was gone – out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes.
Endowed with the trust fund her parents had set up for her even before her birth, recommendations from her mentors for a Shinto guji at Seattle’s shrine who might help her acculturalize and support her in her continuing magical and spiritual journey, her high school diploma, her charm and good looks, and of course the knowledge that Amenouzume would not abandon her in this foreign land, Yuna arrived in Seattle. Soon, she had integrated into the small local Shinto community and befriended its guji, and had found and rented a condo which provided the comfort and luxury she was accustomed to, as well as a freelance job providing magical entertainment shows in Dante’s Inferno, one of the city’s hottest night clubs. She embraced the new-found freedom whole-heartedly, rapidly becoming a fixture in the city’s club circuit and among the well-to-do young hopefuls. In no time she knew all about the hottest clubs, the trendiest restaurants, the best parties, the vanguard bars, as well as the cutting-edge fashion stores and beauty resorts, just as if she had always lived in Seattle. After a short time of this glamorous (and liberating) lifestyle, Yuna found that not only did she lack the funds to enroll in the University of Washington’s program in Shamanic Studies so she might gain some knowledge of magical traditions other than her own, magical theory and awakened phenomena, as well as a respectable degree, but the trust fund and her salary from the magical shows at the night club did not even add up to enough to maintain the lifestyle she was used to. It was one morning after her daily purification ritual, while she was perusing job offerings on the matrix, and her frustration was steadily increasing, that the number of a man she had met at a gallery opening after-party, whose occupation she had not quite been able to pin down, popped up on her commlink’s ‘incoming call’ window. “I heard you are looking for a job,” his AR persona said. “I might have something you could be interested in…”


Metatype: Elf
     (natural Low-Light Vision)
Magic: Magician (Shinto Tradition)
Mentor Spirit: Amenouzume (Seductress)


Build Points: 450
Total Karma: 8 (all spent)
Current Karma: 0
Street Cred / Notoriety / Public Awareness: 0


Attributes
Agility: 4
Body: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 3
Charisma: 8
Intuition: 4
Logic: 4
Willpower: 3

Edge: 1
Essence: 6
Magic: 6
Resonance: 0

Regular Initiative: 7 (1 IP)
Astral Initiative: 8 (3 IP)
Matrix Initiative: 8 (2 IP)

Composure: 11
Judge Initiative: 12
Lift/Carry: 6
Memory: 7

Physical / Stun / Matrix Damage Track: 10 Boxes each


Qualities
Positive:
Bilingual
Magician (Tradition: Shinto)
Mentor Spirit (Seductress)
Trust Fund (Middle Lifestyle)
Negative:
Addiction (Alcohol, moderate)
Geas (Ritual Geas: daily 2-hour Shinto purification ritual)
Low Pain Tolerance
SINner (Standard)


Skills
Active
Assensing (Aura Reading): 1
Conjuring Skill Group: 4
     Banishing
     Binding
     Summoning
Influence Skill Group: 1
     Con (+2 dice from Mentor Spirit)
     Etiquette
     Leadership
     Negotiation
Pistols (Semi-Automatics): 1
Sorcery Skill Group: 4
     Counterspelling
     Ritual Spellcasting
     Spellcasting
Stealth Skill Group: 1
     Disguise
     Infiltration
     Palming
     Shadowing
Knowledge
Current Fashion (Neo-Japanese): 4
Entertainment (Magical): 4
Magical Background (Shinto): 5
Mitsuhama Corporate Culture (Kyoto Arcology): 1
Religion (Shinto): 1
Seattle Night Life Scene (Downtown): 3
Languages
English: N
Japanese: N


Spells
     (+2 dice for Illusion Spells from Mentor Spirit)
Chaotic World
Dream
Improved Invisibility
Orgy
Physical Mask
Silence
Trid Entertainment
Trid Phantasm


Gear
Mortimer of London Greatcoat
Mortimer of London Berwick Line Suit (Jacket, Blouse, Skirt)
Zoé Moonsilver Line Cocktail Dress with Shawl
Set of warm clothes (chic)
Yamaha Sakura Fubuki (with Advanced Safety System with Pain Inducer, Folding Stock, Gecko Grip, Hidden Gun Arm Slide, Improved Range Finder, Internal Silencer, Internal Smartgun System, Lanyard, Safe Target System with Image Recognition Software, Tracker)
Gel ammunition
Contact Lenses (with Flare Compensation, Image Link, Smartlink)
Earbuds (with Audio Enhancement (Rating 3), Select Sound Filter (Rating 3), Spatial Recognizer)
Fairlight Caliban Commlink with Novatech Navi OS (with AR Gloves, Armor Case (Rating 10), Biometric Lock, Biometric Reader, Customized Interface, Hardening (Rating 6), Nanopaste Trodes, Printer, Satellite Link, Simrig including Sim Module for Cold Sim, Skinlink, Subvocal Microphone)
FTL Matrixware Power Suite Software
Iris Antivirus Software
PocketMage Library Software (Rating 2)
2x Certified Credstick (Standard, empty)
Fake SIN (Rating 6)
Medkit (Rating 6)
Glasscutter
2x Scent-Masking Cigarette
GloWand
2x Survival Kit
2x Trauma Patch
2x Stimulant Patch (Rating 6)
Magical Lodge Materials (Rating 6)
Spirit Binding Materials (Rating 6)
Doc-Wagon-Contract (Gold)

Lifestyle: High (Middle Lifestyle covered by Trust Fund, 5,000 nuyen paid to upgrade to High for 1 month)


Spirits
Currently 1 Bound Spirit (Spirit of Man, Force 6, 1 service owed, additional Powers: Psychokinesis and Fear)
Currently 1 Unbound Spirit (Spirit of Air, Force 4, 1 service owed)


Contacts
Alessio (Loyalty 1 / Connection 4)
Alessio is an elf and the manager of Seattle's nightclub Dante's Inferno. Yuna has been employed by him for magical entertainment in the club.
Lee Leighland (Loyalty 1 / Connection 3)
Yuna met Lee at a party. One of Seattle's fixers, he got Yuna started on her first experience running the shadows.
Aoi Takahashi (Loyalty 4 / Connection 3)
A miko (Shinto magician) and the guji (chief priestess) of Seattle's Shinto shrine, Aoi is Yuna's link to her familiar Japanese culture, and has quickly become not only a magical and spiritual mentor, but also a friend.

[UmaroVI]

If you check the link in my sig, the Spirit Medium is a relatively similar character and you might want to compare for future character-building advice. The big things that stand out as "I would not  do this" red flags:

3 willpower. That is very bad, you really want 5 as a mage and I would drop Agility, Strength, and Logic as needed to get it.

3 body is on the low side and mages are high priority targets, a 4 or better yet a 5 would be great and again I would drop agility, strength and Logic to afford this if need be.

Banishing is a trap option - the way to "banish" spirits most effectively is to stunbolt them in the face, and it's cheaper too. Banishing also runs the risk of making your face melt off when you try to banish a bound spirit and it gets enough hits to hand you 14P drain.

I think you're too hyper-focused on Illusion spells. There are other good spells out there! You have a number of different ways of accomplishing the same thing (ex: you don't really need Trid Entertainment when you have Trid Phantasm, and Chaotic World is just a bad spell), but many problems will leave you completely helpless. For example, you lose a fight with an off-the-shelf combat drone, because you need 6 hits to affect it with any illusions and have no indirect attack spells. I would have dropped Trid Entertainment and Chaotic World for some P-damage indirect single target spell and some kind of utility spell like Levitate, Mind Probe, Heal, Alter Memory, Detox, etc etc etc.

No foci. Foci are really good. If your GM is pretty generous with the cash you can do fine picking them up later, though.

Where I would go to improve things:
Learning new spells would be a good move so you have more flexibility. If your GM is reasonably generous with the "people who take a bigger penalty from Orgy than their willpower can't act" thing, you are probably fine with that as a go-to spell, otherwise you might grab Stunball.
Get some foci! My first buy would be a Force 4 Sustaining (Health) focus and Increase Reflexes, which will drastically boost your ability to fight effectively. Other useful ones: Centering focus (once you have the Centering metamagic), Sustaining (Illusion) foci for stuff like Improved Invisibility, which will help you stay alive. Power foci are great, but might be too karma-intensive to be worth saving for; you might realistically opt to go with a Spellcasting (Illusion) focus instead. A Sustaining (Health) focus and Increase Reaction would also probably be a good buy for more defenses.
Joining a magical groups and initiating is a good use of karma. There's lots of useful metamagic, and it will eventually let you get more Magic.
Another point of Edge is probably worth 10 karma sometime.
Get some better armor; with 3 body, you can steal the armor on the Technoshaman (link in my signature) as an example. It's worth having a suit of armor for when you care more about "not dying" than "looking chic."

Vehicle-wise, what sort of roles are you looking to fill with said vehicle? Transport? Protection? Fire support? Do you have a rigger, or does it need to drive itself? How important is being unobtrusive vs. being well-armored? Flying?