[Elfarcher]

How do I make him with 400 pts? Everything I've tried goes over.

[TheNarrator]

Yeah, there's never enough build points to go around. 400 BP is, in my opinion, enough for a character to to be good at one thing and maybe passable at a few others, and that's about it.

So really you need to try and make a younger, less powerful Dresden, rather than the badass he's become after over a dozen books.

Maybe show us what you've got so far, and we'll see what advice we can give about bringing the cost down?

[Makki]

How do I make him with 400 pts? Everything I've tried goes over.

400BP means just started career and needs to learn a lot. HD has been "running" for two() decades, of course, he has earned tons of karma.
Harry Dresden in the books should be you ultimate goal after several campagnes of karma, not something to start of. His attitude and way of dealing with things are things your starting character can already possess.

[JustADude]

How do I make him with 400 pts? Everything I've tried goes over.

Dresden is far, far from a 400BP character. FAR from it. Doing him in his pre-Storm Front days, when he was still with Ragged Angel Investigations, is about the closest you're going to get.


Oh, also, be sure to take a Mentor Spirit that befits Lea / Mab. Almost forgot about them.

[SeriousOne338]

Oh, also, be sure to take a Mentor Spirit that befits Lea / Mab. Almost forgot about them.

I think you'd need to take Enemy Lea if your going for a ragged angel Harry because he was trying to get out of that deal he made. As for mentor spirit, that's Bob. Just my opinion but this is the way I'd do it.

[JustADude]

Oh, also, be sure to take a Mentor Spirit that befits Lea / Mab. Almost forgot about them.

I think you'd need to take Enemy Lea if your going for a ragged angel Harry because he was trying to get out of that deal he made. As for mentor spirit, that's Bob. Just my opinion but this is the way I'd do it.

Bob's already down as a contact and Perfect Roommate.

Besides, Lea is his godmother. It's mentioned several times that she's supposed to take care of his spiritual upbringing. You can do "Mentor Spirit" to show her past influence and "Enemy" to show that they're at odds now.

[Glyph]

Mentor spirits in Shadowrun don't quite work that way.  They are nebulous entities that represent some kind of belief or ideal, and give the magician power in exchange for upholding that code.  Harry's faerie godmother doesn't actually continually boost his magical powers, nor can she penalize or take away his magical powers for not acting in accordance with her will.  She may be a spirit, and she may act as a mentor at times, but she is not a mentor spirit in the SR4 sense.

[Mason]

Mentor spirits in Shadowrun don't quite work that way.  They are nebulous entities that represent some kind of belief or ideal, and give the magician power in exchange for upholding that code.  Harry's faerie godmother doesn't actually continually boost his magical powers, nor can she penalize or take away his magical powers for not acting in accordance with her will.  She may be a spirit, and she may act as a mentor at times, but she is not a mentor spirit in the SR4 sense.

Pretty much, though she can exert a kind of control over him. Lea basically has a Spirit Pact with him, granting him knowledge and guidance so long as he acts in accordance with the deal, and granting her control over him while in his presence when he does not. A sort of double-bind pact that would really need a custom quality to work in the SR4 rule set.

[Ryanthusar]

You know, I had an idea of a character concept a while ago when I came across a few things in Street magic that I thought was cool that may just help with his general thrust. Just a pretty standard Gumshoe Detective... certainly not optimal combatwise in any case.

Someone with the 'Astral sight' Quality, with psychometry and sensing metamagics, possibly spell knack and/or spirit affinity. 

Throw in a bunch of investigation and knowledge skills, running and  and voila!

[Elfarcher]

Also I was wondering how to do all the non-ritual spells he dose such as "Feugo"(fire column thing) and "Ventas Servitas"(wind he uses to move things). Also keep in mind how he understands magic. The four elements and spirit contained within human will.

[TheNarrator]

Harry's basic combat spells are pretty easy to recreate in SR.

"Fuego" is pretty much exactly the same as Flamethrower or Fireball in SR4.

"Ventas Servitas" would be Levitate or Magic Fingers, depending on how much he was moving.

"Forzare" would be Clout or Blast.

Harry's view of magic seems to pretty much match the hermetic mage tradition from the core book.

[SeriousOne338]

Harry's basic combat spells are pretty easy to recreate in SR.

"Fuego" is pretty much exactly the same as Flamethrower or Fireball in SR4.

"Ventas Servitas" would be Levitate or Magic Fingers, depending on how much he was moving.

"Forzare" would be Clout or Blast.

Harry's view of magic seems to pretty much match the hermetic mage tradition from the core book.

You missed the big one he uses his tracking spell tons in the books.

[TheNarrator]

You missed the big one he uses his tracking spell tons in the books.

The magic systems or Dresden Files and Shadowrun are different, and SR doesn't really have an exact equivalent there, as far as I know. Finding people and things in SR can be done with either Ritual Spellcasting or an Astral Search (usually done by a summoned spirit with the Search power). There's a "Detect Individual" spell, but the range is hilariously short.

Harry's tracking spell is basically a way to move the plot along. Having a spirit look for the thing in question (since summoning is way easier and less dangerous in SR than in DF) and then point him in the right direction would accomplish the same thing.

[Mason]

Uhm...locate individual cast RITUALLY doesn't care about range. That is the precise spell he keeps using. He uses the object variants for other things he tracks. Dresden is a combat/detection mage.

[TheNarrator]

Detect [Object] needs to be taken separately for each kind of object you want to detect. Unless your Dresdenesque Shadowrun PC wants to buy a new spell every take he takes a "missing object" case, that's not a viable option.

Ritual Spellcasting requires an spotter assensing a target, either one of the ritual spellcasters or a bound spirit. So you still need to track them somehow, probably with a spirit with the Search power. It also takes (12 - Magic) hours, minimum 1 hour, and can only be done from a magical lodge, which makes it a bit unwieldly for tracking. (It makes sense for things like the "murder through ritual magic" from Storm Front, however.)