[Midus]

Hello, everyone! My first Shadowrun character was built to resemble a Beguiler from 3.5 Dnd. A rogueish, fast talking, illusionist type. I have always loved the character concept and I thought it translates well to running the shadows. Also this character fits well into the role of our teams Face, which is another role i really enjoy playing, so I am very excited about this guy. That said iv made and remade him a dozen times already, never satisfied with what i get so any help from a more experienced mage would be very much welcomed!

Also, because I wanted to be a charismatic magic user I opted to create my own tradition that uses Charisma and Willpower to oppose drain. I flavored the tradition as a prodigal, creativity based magic system where spells are learned organically instead of systematically.

Background: Raised in a rundown sprawl orphanage with a younger sister, who he was very protective of. Was kicked out onto the streets when he exhibited he began exhibiting his awakened powers. Tried to stay in contact with sister until a terrible accident, perhaps a botched, unrelated shadowrun, caused devastation on a downtown city block, destroying many buildings, including the orphanage. Presuming his sister to be dead, Willem gained an addiction to BTLs and other dark things until he and friends managed to drag him out of his depression for a lucrative life of shadowrunning.

Attributes
Body: 2
Agility: 2                           Edge: 2
Reaction: 3                     Magic: 5
Strength: 1
Charisma: 5                   Essence: 6
Intuition: 3                       Initiative: 6
Logic: 3                           Init. Passes: 1
Willpower: 5


Skills
Con 4 (+2 seduction)
Counterspelling 4
First Aid 1 (+2 combat wounds)
Infiltration 1 (+2 urban)
Leadership 1 (+2 morale)
Negotiation 1 (+2 bargaining)
Palming 1 (+2 legerdemain)
Spellcasting 6 (+2 illusion)


Qualities
First Impression 5
Magician 15
Restricted Gear 5
Trustworthy 5 (con)
Mentor Spirit 5 (seductress)

Addiction Moderate 10 (BTLs)
Lost Loved One 5
Scorched 5
Thrill Seeker 5
Weak Immune System 5
Pacifist 5


Focis
Power Foci r4


Magic
Heal
Mind Probe
Mob Mood
Imp Invisibility
Trid Phantasm
Orgasm
Dream
Mass Confusion
Stun Bolt
Critter Form (Raven)

In addition to whats listed above I have, among random odds and ends, modified contact lenses, goggles, a rating 6 medkit, hot sim enabled com link, and a smart gun enabled light pistol which i am a terrible shot with. Im also wearing armored clothing but I plan on using invisibility as my primary line of defense in combat

I have 10 or so floating build points still with no real idea where to put them. As of right now the only thing i am worried about is spell drain, but I should be safe casting spells at force 5 for the most part. Any critiques, suggestions, or hints are welcome! =D

*edit* I should also add that I spent 32 points on a varied list of contacts because I find the contact system very neat. That may be a bit toooo much though. Ill let those with more experience be the judge lol

[Solomon]

I would never spend less than the full 200 on attributes. Magic doesnt count against the 200 limit. I would find a way to put a lot more into that area of your build. I would lower my con and get the Social grouping if I was planning to be the face. Negotiate will come up a lot and you should be better at it. I personally dont like spending all my initial points on foci, 17 character points is a big investment in my opinion but your mileage may vary

[Midus]

Yeah, i regret not spending the full 200 on attributes but its also the place where i can save the most points by lowering them. And apart from agility I don't particularly mind how low the rest of them are. I would flavor the lack in physical attributes as the negative consequences of years of BTL abuse. I might be able to save enough points to max out willpower or charisma, or raise my intuition/logic a little bit.

When i originally created this guy I had the social group at 4 but was upset that I couldn't specialize in anything yet and I love the fast talking con concept. I might just bite the bullet and take the group and use karma to specialize later, however. My mentor bonus and qualities can make up for the loss =)

And as for the power foci, it really was the hardest thing for me to justify. It's a lot of points, plus the restricted gear quality. I just thought that it would be a huge boon to get it at character creation when I am able to. I might just lower it to rating 2, perhaps, which saves me the points and the quality.

Thanks for the response and feedback! Helps put things into perspective for a new a game system

[UmaroVI]

Either get it at 4 (which I recommend) or don't get it at all. The reason to get it at chargen rather than later is that it's 32 karma to bind, or 9 bp (including Restricted Gear) to bind at chargen. If your GM throws money at you like crazy it is only an OK purchase (because then you want to spend as little on money at chargen as possible, so it's 29 bp vs 32 karma which is meh), but otherwise you do have stuff to do with money.

The only thing that really screams "BAD IDEA" to me is the 2 body. That's asking to die.

I would lose First Aid and Palming, neither of which help you much, add +1 body, buy some better armor, and swap Mass Confusion (which is rather shaky in its usefulness) for Physical Mask (which is a really good spell with lots of uses), and Mob Mood, which is a terrible spell, for Influence, which is a good spell that fits your theme.

I would seriously consider cutting down to 2 logic to go up to 4 body, although that does depend on how deadly your GM tends to run.

[Captain Karzak]

So how dangerous is the game world you are going to be playing in?

Right now, your build has low health, low damage resistance, low defense pools, low initiative, and 1 Initiative Pass. You are going to be super unhappy when someone who knows how to use a gun decides to point it in your direction (which will happen because you are a mage).

More importantly, you have 0 ranks in summoning. If you are going to listen to only a single piece of advice, please make it this: Spirits are amazing. No no that's not right - they mindbogglingly awesome! Spirits are literally and honestly 80% of the reason to play a mage. As good as spells are (and they are quite good), spirits are vastly more awesome. Seriously consider having 6 ranks in summoning and four ranks in spellcasting. You'd have to drop 2 spells (that will give you back 6 BP that you can put towards funding this change) and you'l make huge gains from being able to benefit from the dazzling array of spirit powers now available to you.

I notice that you've bought a lot of specializations. They are a poor use of BP, but a fantastic use of karma. Generally your specializations are bought with the karma you earn on your first one or two sessions and it feels awesome how much progress your character is making on such minuscule expenditures of karma.

[UmaroVI]

Oh snap, I totally missed the lack of summoning. That is a bad idea, and you should not do it. You actually don't need much summoning to be effective - the limiter on your ability to summon big spirits is much more "regularly summoning high-force spirits will eventually get your face melted off from drain" rather than needing a big summoning pool, but not having AT LEAST 1 summoning and a specialization is bad. I don't think more than 4 summoning is worth it though, that would leave you with 13 dice to summon spirits, and they only resist with force.

[Midus]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I did take a lot of your advice and went back an changed my character around a good bit. I took the influence skill group and a number of biotech and genetech mods to increase my charisma and social skills further, at the cost of 1 essence. I swapped out the two spells for physical mask and influence as well, and I managed to take levitate as well.

We played our first game this past thursday which had our group enter a bank that is undergoing a hostage crisis. Our goal was to kill the 5 men holding the hostages and get out quick. I had fun prepping for the mission as I was integral to ferrying my team 1 by 1, under invisibility, to a balcony and levitating them up, without the many lonestar agents surrounding the bank from catching on. Meanwhile, two others from the group were in the sewers beneath the bank hacking into its node and opening doors/silencing alarms and cameras. Once we were in position and the guns started firing I just kept myself invisible and out of the way, stepping up just long enough to stunbolt one of the robbers so we would have a live subject to speak with/mind probe later for any information our contact may have left out about the job.

All in all, I had fun during combat while the other people in my group tore the goons apart. As of right now our gaming group is just trying to find out what we want in the game and I know heavy combat is certainly not my main desire. Or, if it happens to be a big combat game, we have talked about implementing runs where my character would be off on his own playing the Face game and feeding information to the active team, or else accomplishing some other vital goal of the run. So I feel as if our campaign wont necessarily be extremely deadly, for me at least. Iv always been an intrigue and role playing enthusiast as it is and Shadowrun seems like an excellent system for allowing, and even encouraging, such party splits.

All the same, I still want to be useful in combat when I find myself in it so being able to neutralize one target on my only initiative pass with stunbolt, and being able to heal, are big for me. As is using my illusions for defensive purposes. Drawing fire, misdirection, invisibility, and the like.

I think iv only glossed over the parts of the book related to summoning and spirits so I will most likely go back and read in more detail. I just know I have never been a huge fan of summoning minions to do my bidding but seeing as how both of you think highly of them I will have to read with an open mind =)