[Aria]

My fascination with adepts continues... but this one seriously needs some work - she's not quite living up to the concept in my mind which is loosely inspired by a 40K character from the Inquisition novels...

I've gone for the possession tradition (psionics) as a way of boosting her physical combat forms.  Self limiting it to a force 1 or 2 spirit (probably about all she could cope with given her conjouring ability) is no more unbalancing that a tacnet as far as I can tell...any hardened armour isn't going to be that significant at 4 either!  She wouldn't neccesarily think of it as summoning either, more an extension of her adept/telekenetic abilities.

<<Switch>>

Any help appreciated.

[UmaroVI]

Unfortunately, I think this setup is just a thing that Does Not Work. There are two big problems:

1) Until you have Channeling, self-possession with a low force spirit is terrible, because its skills overwrite yours!

2) Even after you have channeling, self-possession with a low force spirit comes with some enormous drawbacks. Namely:
Its magic overwrites yours. Bye-bye Power Points!
You use the lower of Intuition and Willpower to defend against magic, so doing this leaves you wide open to being stunbolted to the face.

I think you might need to step back and rethink what you want to do and how you want to do it. I am not familiar with your inspirational material: can you give me an idea of what you want to be doing?

[Aria]

Ah, thanks Umaro…I’ve seen a similar adept played this way (but they were an uber monster possessed by a Force 5 spirit with combat senses at 6 making them practically untouchable… shudder) and I’d assumed that a lower force spirit would be a less unbalancing compromise (slap wrist for not studying the rules!!!) – not to worry, I’ve never been overly fond of possession (this would have been my first possession character) so I can just ignore that part of it and spend the points for conjuring on something else.  I’ll stick with psionics as it’s an intuition drain stat and fits the telekinetic theme!

Inspiration wise, the character in question flings metal slivers as a ranged weapon and uses them to deflect incoming attacks (perhaps a variation of the armour spell with orbiting spikes rather than glow?!?).  As far as I can tell Fling is equally good to any other direct combat spell and is a manipulation spell so fits her specialisation (). 

I want someone with versatility, who doesn’t need to use guns for ranged attacks, and perhaps some secondary skills (not sure what yet though as there doesn’t seem to be an obvious synergy with her stats).  I could go with missile mastery etc but I thought it would be fun to try it this way first – and having seen your Former Neo-Primitive I don’t see her flinging combat axes for fun!  Missile mastery wouldn’t really feel like telekenisis – although there would be a lot less drain and less range, ah, swings and roundabouts…

She should probably swap spellcasting and blade skills around too to be better as a runner!

She’s got stunbolt as a telekinetic punch to the head, possibly a bit of a reach but it’s a useful spell.  Improved Reflexes is again a bit of a reach but sadly seems to be necessary for anyone who wants to be effective in combat in SR.  I suppose it wouldn’t be thematically out of character to rely on Cram (or similar) drugs though instead…

It would be nice to not have to rely on muscle toner and augmentation too, sadly they are too big a bang for the buck to be ignored!  I suppose I could look at health sustaining focuses as an alternative but that gets expensive fast and wards would be a bugger!

[UmaroVI]

There's a "Metal" element in Street Magic. I actually think you can get pretty decent mileage out of it, although it is in some ways a sucky element (not very good at damaging vehicles, because it works like flechettes), I think it's the best of the ways to fit your concept.

One good way to roll as a MysAd is to melee people, and use [Element] Aura to attach extra damage to your weapon and convert it to elemental. Metal Aura, Metal Wall (which is quite good as it's solid and opaque), and make the "throwing spikes" thing Metal Cloud (WAR!), which is a Suppressive Fire spell. All those are manipulation and are pretty good, and synergize better with melee, and could be described as TK metal splinters. Fling is actually kinda bad.

Spirits are very good and you really should use them. I can see a few ways to fit the theme:
Either Earth or Guardian Materialization spirits could be described as "cloud of metal splinters" easily enough. Guardian spirits can, with GM permission, get Elemental Attack (Metal)*
Possess stuff that's not you - like Homonculi. They are effective, animating a homonculus makes perfect sense as something a telekinetic could do, and they're not really imbalancing (homonculi are a bit better than materialized spirits, but they are 'locked' in place and can't just appear through walls and stuff).

*This isn't better than a more typical element so there's no reason for the GM to complain about it, IMO.

[Aria]

Interesting!!! I like the idea of metal aura adding to melee damage (I now remember that the aforementioned adept used electricity aura to great effect!).  I think the details would need to be clarified with the GM as the text of the spell says half impact armour (like other elemental effects) but metal specifically says +2DV and +2 impact armour.  I would probably go with the latter as it’s the lesser of the two.  Using her flechettes as manipulation fetishes would help reduce the excessive drain!  The drain on metal cloud is too hideous for words at +5 and would probably need to wait for some levels of centring to offset it.

Having re-read fling it is crap – half force strength throwing weapon, ack!  Maybe I will look at getting missile mastery after all as a ranged attack.  It could be described as a telekinetic attack given the big boost to strength over a conventional thrown weapon…or maybe just powerbolt or similar with a change to the spell description…

Looking for skill synergy I’ve considered ditching the psionics tradition for either a logic one (cerebral boosters, first aid etc spring to mind) or a charisma one (influence skills and possibly a tweak to her Surge to get something like glamour).  Given that her Dad is a fixer/speaker adept that last option would be appropriate and fit better with her Hi there, I’m the mage, geek me first spinning auras

I hear what you are saying about spirits but those points are getting stretched thin and I think I would rather she could do something else (like secondary face) rather than have another combat boost.  I know spirits are/can be much more than just additional fighters but I want her to be more adept than mage so something has to give…

[JustADude]

One good way to roll as a MysAd is to melee people, and use [Element] Aura to attach extra damage to your weapon and convert it to elemental.

So, does Metal Aura stack with Critical Strike?

[UmaroVI]

Yes, Metal Aura and Critical Strike stack.

Spirits: Summoning 1 and a specialization is enough to summon useful spirits. Being good at summoning is expensive, being competent is very cheap.

[Aria]

I've made some fairly significant changes if you wouldn't mind having a look?

Key post character purchases would be sustaining foci (or persuade the GM that heightened concentration works on the penalties for sustaining multiple spells...) and perhaps some camouflage/stealth type spells...

[UmaroVI]

Health focus and Power focus don't stack (I assume Health focus = Health spellcasting focus?)

Otherwise, I think you're pretty good. I would consider a bit of stat-shuffling:

-2 Strength
+1 Willpower
Another +1 Blades DV martial art
Off-Hand Training (Blades)
Riposte (actually quite a good choice for you, because of Metal Aura)
1 point of something else.

I would also think about going down to 1 Influence; it's bad karma-efficiency to have 2, and it's not like there aren't other things you need as well. Another point of Intuition, Agility, or Reaction would be great.

Also, I forgot about this, but here's a similarly-functioning character if you want to compare notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10MwsT8ImYNPvPQA--f8F5Dk-jUBKF76DCLdKHPAyZPc/edit

(Is partly a joke, but the character is still pretty effective).

[Aria]

Health focus and Power focus don't stack (I assume Health focus = Health spellcasting focus?)

Oops!

I don't know how you manage to retain your encyclopedic knowledge of the rules but I'm grateful for the character clinic 

[rasmusnicolaj]

Health focus and Power focus don't stack (I assume Health focus = Health spellcasting focus?)

Oops!

I don't know how you manage to retain your encyclopedic knowledge of the rules but I'm grateful for the character clinic 

I'm guessing implants like Cerebral Boosters, Enchephalon, Math SPU and PuSHed 

Rasmus

[UmaroVI]

The matrix rules took a not-insignificant amount of Jameson's Irish Whiskey.