[rungok]

I'm working on making a new magician type awakened character.
I'd like some advice on building him to be as powerful in magic as he can get at character creation without being utterly inept in everything else. (Being specialized is okay of course)

I would like him to focus on combat magic mostly, but still be able to generally improve in any direction. He's going to be a power hungry sunnovabitch.
Any build advice would be appreciated. Were using normal points, and I have access to the core book, digital grimoire, and street magic.

[UmaroVI]

Take a look at my sig and check out the magic archetypes. If you want just magic and nothing else, take the Magical Rocker, drop Artisan, and spend the points on more magical skills. Possibly drop 1 point out of reaction for Magic 6 instead of more skills.

[Tsuzua]

I would suggest looking at Umaro's archetypes.  They use all the books, but they should be okay with only minor changes*.  The most "All I want is power!  Pure power!" is the Magical Rocker.  The Spirit Medium has decent social skills.  The Paranormal Detective is about spotting stuff as well as casting.  The Burned Out Combat Mage trades magical might for toughness and drain resistance. 

*- Mainly changing armor especially if you don't have Arsenal

[rungok]

I like the magical rocker character.

Why Buddhist tradition? Is there something I should know about that of is it relatively safe to switch it out for something else?

[Tsuzua]

I like the magical rocker character.

Why Buddhist tradition? Is there something I should know about that of is it relatively safe to switch it out for something else?

The main reason is that Buddhist tradition is one of the few Intuition traditions that wasn't possession.  There was already a Wiccan mage in the archetypes.  And the "hook" of the Buddhist tradition for a rocker worked out better than Druidic.

You'll have to move some mental attributes around and lose Initiative if you want to do a non-Intuition tradition.

[rungok]

I also could use a crash course in resisting drain and using summoning.

I thought you had to test against the drain calculation of the spell depending on the force you set it to be (For example, force 4/2+2= 4). If you made enough hits, you didn't take any hits to your stun track. But now I've seen stuff that says you use the amount of hits you got on the spellcasting roll to determine drain? Was I right about making enough hits on the resist test?

And I've never used summoning before. How difficult would it be for this magical rocker to summon up said rank 5 fire spirit?

Oh, and how much do you suppose it would be for a really righteous axe (guitar), and can I have it be a foci for something?

[Tsuzua]

I also could use a crash course in resisting drain and using summoning.

I thought you had to test against the drain calculation of the spell depending on the force you set it to be (For example, force 4/2+2= 4). If you made enough hits, you didn't take any hits to your stun track. But now I've seen stuff that says you use the amount of hits you got on the spellcasting roll to determine drain? Was I right about making enough hits on the resist test?

And I've never used summoning before. How difficult would it be for this magical rocker to summon up said rank 5 fire spirit?

Oh, and how much do you suppose it would be for a really righteous axe (guitar), and can I have it be a foci for something?

That's how you calculate and resist drain.  The whole "net hits add to drain for direct combat spells" rule dates from the first PDF release of SR4A.  There it was the rule.  However in later versions of the PDF and in print, the rule become optional.  This was done because it's not a very good rule. 

Summoning is pretty easy.  It's an opposed test between your summoning roll and the spirit's force.  Every net hit you get gives you 1 service from the spirit.  You have to resist drain equal to the spirit's total hits * 2.   

If the magical rocker is summoning a force 5 fire spirit, the rocker rolls 12 dice and the spirit rolls 5 dice.  If the rocket wins the roll, he gets 1 service from the spirit for every hit net he gets.  If he gets no net hits or loses the roll against the spirit, then the spirit doesn't appear.  Either way, he has to soak drain equal to the number of hits the spirit rolls times two. 

As for guitar focus, that's cool.  You can make it the sustaining or power focus.  Just remember you have to be carrying it to get its effects.

[UmaroVI]

There's an optional rule that for direct combat spells (stun*, power*, and mana* spells, but not others), you add net hits to drain. This rule isn't used in missions because it's optional; if it is used, it changes tactics a little but not character builds - I'll get back to this.

It's easy to summon spirits. The problem is that they have very spiky drain, so you want to be reasonably cautious about summoning big ones. The rocker rolls 1 (summoning) + 5 (magic) + 4 (focus) + 2 (mentor) = 12d6 to summon a force 5 fire spirit, and the spirit rolls only 5d6 to resist, so it will almost always work on get a bit more than 2 services on average - and on average only 3.33 drain. The trick is that the drain is very spiky because it's twice the spirit's hits, so it might well get 3 hits and you take 6S. Thus, it's best to summon early, and sleep off the stun, when you can.

To get better at summoning, the best path is to get more drain resist - the limiting factor is really the drain you take, not the summoning test.

I have no idea how much a guitar is on its own, but I expect that's a reasonable choice for what one of the Magical Rocker's foci is.

On the "hits add to drain for direct combat spells" rule, what you want to do if that's used is always overcast your direct combat spells so that the base damage is enough to take down your target, then drop all net hits (which you are explicitly allowed to do). So if that's used, rather than f7 stunbolt, you cast f10 stunbolt and drop all (or maybe all but one, if you think your target has 5+ willpower) net hits. This is because each extra 2 force is 2 DV and 1 drain, but each 2 net hits for the 2 DV would be 2 drain, so you always overcast direct combat spells at the maximum. This is why that rule is dumb, but some people like it.

[rungok]

Okay this is starting to make sense to me.

How effective is a force 5 fire spirit? What can I ask it to do?

[JustADude]

Okay this is starting to make sense to me.

How effective is a force 5 fire spirit? What can I ask it to do?

Fire Spirit powers are listed on page 303 of SR4A. Lets take a look at 'em, plugging the attributes for a Force 5 spirit.

Weaknesses: Allergy (Water, Severe)

Body:            6
Agility:           7
Reaction:      8
Strength:      3
Charisma:     5
Intuition:       5
Logic:            5
Willpower:    5
Edge:            5
Essence:       5
Magic:           5
Initiative:     13
IPs:               2
Astral Init:    10
Astral IPs:     3

Movement: 15/40 (Flight)

Skills (Rating = F): Assensing, Astral Combat, Dodge, Exotic Ranged Weapon (Elemental Attack), Flight, Perception, Unarmed Combat

Powers: Accident, Astral Form, Confusion, Elemental Attack (Fire), Energy Aura (Fire), Engulf (Fire), Materialization, Sapience

Optional Powers (Pick 1): Fear, Guard, Noxious Breath (Smoke/Ash), Search

From the looks of things they're basically going to be best at manipulating the opposition's battle-space and causing chaos and burniation... in other words, "Combat". Just watch out for sprinklers.

Give that particular spirit the Search power, though, and he'd also be good at hunting down targets for you. Guard would help prevent glitches if you have the spirit on "overwatch" duty. and Fear or Noxious Breath would help increase its ability to screw with the enemy.

You can actually task it to do just about anything, but you have to remember what they're set up for and what they aren't... and for a Combat-oriented mage, they're right up your alley.

As for guitar focus, that's cool.  You can make it the sustaining or power focus.  Just remember you have to be carrying it to get its effects.

Also, perhaps pick up the Geas quality, and have it give you a -1 penalty to Magic when not playing the guitar.

[UmaroVI]

Some of the major uses of one:

Fighting. They are good at it. With Engulf and Element Aura, it has a 9 DV attack vs half impact, with a grab as well, and it has high Agility and Reaction. Fear is also very nasty.
Search. You can use this to find people.
Scout things astrally - if it runs into something dangerous that destroys it, you get notified - much better than if you found it yourself.
Assense things for you (it will probably be better than you)
Remember that spirits can travel very fast through the astral and, unlike magicians, can materialize and fight. You can do things like send a spirit ahead if you're racing to something, send it to intercept people, or summon it while you are astral and order it to manifest and fight. They're also excellent assassins.

Major uses for the other spirit types you get as a Buddhist:
Air: Concealment, Movement. Concealment in particular is big.
Water: Weather Control
Guidance: Divination
Earth: they suck, don't bother

[JustADude]

Earth: they suck, don't bother

Depends on the GM, really, and how they play the NPCs. A huge, grinding, bellowing pile of vaguely humanoid rocks is going to draw a LOT of attention away from the squishy human types if it appears in the middle of the enemy formation. Plus it also has Concealment and Fear as Optional Powers.

With their F+4 for Str and Bod, plus Binding, they're also good for carrying "extraction" targets, as well as doing the heavy lifting and grunt-work.

EDIT: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Spirits do also get Fx2 Hardened Armor, correct? That makes using a nice, tough Earth Spirit as a point man and walking booby-trap detector another good use. Not as good as Beasts, but Buddhist's don't get Beasts.

[rungok]

It's easy to summon spirits. The problem is that they have very spiky drain, so you want to be reasonably cautious about summoning big ones. The rocker rolls 1 (summoning) + 5 (magic) + 4 (focus) + 2 (mentor) = 12d6 to summon a force 5 fire spirit, and the spirit rolls only 5d6 to resist, so it will almost always work on get a bit more than 2 services on average - and on average only 3.33 drain. The trick is that the drain is very spiky because it's twice the spirit's hits, so it might well get 3 hits and you take 6S. Thus, it's best to summon early, and sleep off the stun, when you can.

I thought if you got enough hits on your drain resist you don't take the stun. Am I wrong?

or summon it while you are astral and order it to manifest and fight.

That... is a dirty dirty trick. I love it.

[JustADude]

It's easy to summon spirits. The problem is that they have very spiky drain, so you want to be reasonably cautious about summoning big ones. The rocker rolls 1 (summoning) + 5 (magic) + 4 (focus) + 2 (mentor) = 12d6 to summon a force 5 fire spirit, and the spirit rolls only 5d6 to resist, so it will almost always work on get a bit more than 2 services on average - and on average only 3.33 drain. The trick is that the drain is very spiky because it's twice the spirit's hits, so it might well get 3 hits and you take 6S. Thus, it's best to summon early, and sleep off the stun, when you can.

I thought if you got enough hits on your drain resist you don't take the stun. Am I wrong?

I'm pretty sure he means the gross, pre-resistance, value, as compared to the usual 4S you'll deal with normally.

or summon it while you are astral and order it to manifest and fight.

That... is a dirty dirty trick. I love it.

Ditto. I'll have to remember that one; I keep forgetting I can astrally project as a mage.

[rasmusnicolaj]

Yes, with a spell you can calculate the exact number of drain you have to resist and make a fair guess about how well you will resist it with your drain resist pool.
You don't know how many net success the spirit will get on its resist summoning roll and a nasty GM can have the spirit use edge so summoning a higher force spirit can suddenly turn really nasty - as in deadly nasty.

Rasmus