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Making a Mystic Adept for a one-shot

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Mercer

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« on: <11-29-11/0832:09> »
I'm making a mystic adept for a one-shot game.  I've made a couple of phys ads for SR4 but mainly I play physical types, so a magician is a departure for me.  Since it's a one shot the GM gave us 500 BP but kept the 200 limit on stats.  Here's what I've got so far:

BOD: 3
AGL: 4
REA: 3
STR: 2
CHA: 5
INT: 4
LOG: 2
WILL: 5

ESS: 6
MAG: 6 (3 Adept/3 Magician)

Skills:
Influence Group: 4
Stealth Group: 4
Perception: 4
Assensing: 4
Spellcasting: 5
Counterspelling: 4
Summoning: 4
Unarmed Combat: 4

Pos Quals:
Mystic Adept 10
Astral Chameleon 5
First Impression 5
Mentor Spirit (Trickster) 5

Neg Quals:
Sensitive System 15
Incompetent Automatics 5
Gremlins (2) 10
Allergy (Uncommon, Mild) 5
Addicition (Mild) 5

Phys Ad Powers:
Astral Perception (1pt)
Enhanced Perception 4 (1pt)
Kinesics 2 (1pt)

Spells:
Stunbolt
Mindlink
Mind Probe
Heal
Inc Reflexes
Imp Invis
Physical Mask
Trid Phantasm
Shapechange
Influence

Foci:
Sustaining (3)
Sustaining (2)

Contacts:
Fixer (3/3)
Talismonger (2/2)
Tribal Chief (2/2)

Gear: 10k left, but probably nothing special.

Spare BP: 19

Concept: Sneaky face, high perception/assensing.  Good utility mage, likes to scout out the weaknesses in the magical security and exploit them rather than make a lot of noise.  Think Michael Weston from "Burn Notice" except with magic instead of tech. 

Notes:  BOD 3 is lower than I would typically start with, but I wanted to be able to Shapechange into the smallest animals possible, particularly when doing recon.  Some things (skill groups,  Magic, more contacts) I went with because it's a one-shot and so there's no advancement.  My only combat spell is Stunbolt.  I wanted it to be Knockout but at the max force the drain is the same for both, and if I'm going to be taking out spirits Stunbolt is the better option.  I took Mindlink because with Gremlins, I thought that would be a more reliable option than a com-link. 

The leftover BP I was going to use to round out the skills or maybe pick up a few more foci.  The GM also mentioned I could Initiate, but I didn't see a BP cost for that, so I need to ask him about that.  (If I could Initiate, I don't know if I'd raise my Kinesics or my magician's Magic rating.) 

CanRay

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« Reply #1 on: <11-29-11/1007:22> »
He needs duct tape.  Lots of duct tape.
Si vis pacem, para bellum

#ThisTaserGoesTo11

UmaroVI

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« Reply #2 on: <11-29-11/1020:00> »
I think your character is mostly fine, because you're trying to do something adepts are good at (social skills and PER) and then leaning on spells for fighting. Some suggestions:

What tradition are you?

You have too much Agility. You have two agility linked skills - Infiltration and Unarmed Combat. And you're generally going to use unarmed combat for Block, not punching, since your spells are mostly better. You would be much better off dropping your Agility down and having more Intuition and Reaction, both of which are far more useful to you - Intuition especially.

In a oneshot I really just wouldn't bother with Astral Chameleon. It's only really worth it in conjunction with some of the metamagics.

Mind Link is crap. I know, I know, it sounds cool, but it is a terrible, terrible spell and having it makes you a bad person. Just use a commlink. Mind Link is horrible and heavily limited, and it just has so much that can go wrong with it, and it has to be sustained, and arrrgh. I would probably grab Increase Charisma instead; if you cast it and get 4 hits (and the drain is 0 at force 5, so you can do this with no real risk), you get a net +2 even with the sustaining penalty. Also helpful for summoning spirits.

You would benefit enormously, and I mean enormously enormously, from having Restricted Gear for a force 4 power focus. Drop magic from 6 to 5 and go 2 magic/3 adept powers if you have to. +4 to everything is worth it. Also, you really should have a second 5 skill or Spellcasting 6.

Specializing skills at chargen is normally bad but this is a oneshot. Specialize at the very least Spellcasting, Summoning, and Unarmed Combat, and probably Perception too.

Sustaining foci are per school. You have to pick schools for them. The f3 one should be increase reflexes; what did you want with the f2 one?

Depending on how your GM thinks it works, Heightened Concentration (from Digital Grimoire) might be super awesome for you. Or it might suck. Check it out.



Mercer

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« Reply #3 on: <11-29-11/1156:39> »
Shaman.

The F2 would be Illusion, most likely.  I was thinking of getting a F1 just for Shapechange.

The Mentor Spirit gives me a +2 to Illusion spells.  I was thinking of specializing my Spellcasting in Manipulation, since those would be the two schools I would cast the most (or need the most hits in). 

For skills I'm torn between raising another skill to 5 or raising Spellcasting to 6.  Raising Spellcasting would let me purchase more spells, but I'm not sure what else I need.  (There's lots of spells I can use.) 

The AGL was mostly for Infiltration.  In the physical world I can rely on Imp Invis or Shapechange, but I need to be able to hide from spirits.  If I lower it, the point would go back to INT.  I originally wanted to be decent at Unarmed because I had Knockout, but I may end up dropping it (and specializing in Blocking) and taking Dodge.   

If Initiation turns out to be an option, I'm really liking Masking. 

UmaroVI

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« Reply #4 on: <11-29-11/1331:28> »
Shaman.

The F2 would be Illusion, most likely.  I was thinking of getting a F1 just for Shapechange.

The Mentor Spirit gives me a +2 to Illusion spells.  I was thinking of specializing my Spellcasting in Manipulation, since those would be the two schools I would cast the most (or need the most hits in). 

For skills I'm torn between raising another skill to 5 or raising Spellcasting to 6.  Raising Spellcasting would let me purchase more spells, but I'm not sure what else I need.  (There's lots of spells I can use.) 

The AGL was mostly for Infiltration.  In the physical world I can rely on Imp Invis or Shapechange, but I need to be able to hide from spirits.  If I lower it, the point would go back to INT.  I originally wanted to be decent at Unarmed because I had Knockout, but I may end up dropping it (and specializing in Blocking) and taking Dodge.   

If Initiation turns out to be an option, I'm really liking Masking.

Don't get a force 2 focus for illusion. Illusions that people need 2 hits to see through and that auto-fail against technology are crappo. Getting a force 1 focus for Shapechange is not the worst idea ever, though it should be a lower priority than a force 4 power focus that is much, much better in every way and will help you far more with everything.

Specialize in Illusion. You want to specialize in stuff that needs mad net hits to work - Manipulation spells tend to be fine with few hits - like Shapechanging into small stuff. You have a lot more Illusions, and Illusions are completely binary in that they are either great or fail depending on how many hits you have. In particular, being able to get 5 hits is very key because that is what you need to fool all technological sensors, and that is very big.

Hiding from spirits is actually Logic+Infiltration because you're on the astral. While astrally percieving, you can use Logic or Agility, but you're at -2 anyways, and if you're doing that you are probably in big trouble. Spirits are really good at spotting you, and rolling 6 dice versus 2xForce is not good times. No matter what, you should have 1 less agility and 1 more Intuition. Having even less Logic and more Reaction is IMO a good idea. Infiltration is useful, but so is not getting shot. Also, note you can use Concealment from spirits to help with that dramatically.

Spellcasting 6 helps you cast spells. This is good because casting spells is useful. If you want more spells too:
Heal
Stunball
Elemental P-damage single target spell (for destroying vehicles/drones)
Increase [] spell that helps another team member - for example, Increase Agility you can cast on an infiltrator or street samurai.
Element Aura if you have a Bruce Lee wannabe on your team
Metal Wall for making opaque hard barriers that emo kids can cut themselves on.
Extended Detect Enemies

all of these are good spells.

Mercer

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« Reply #5 on: <11-29-11/1356:57> »
This particular game is only going to have two players; the other guy is making the samurai.  (I'm not sure if he's going to cover the hacking or if we'll use an NPC hacker, but either way we won't be strong hackers.) 

The only thing I wanted a lot of hits for in Manipulation was Influence.  I won't spend a lot of tactical time in Shapechange (unless I'm escaping), so extra hits aren't a big deal for me there.

I'm going to look at the Power Focus when I have time and my books in front of me.  Thanks for all the suggestions.