[cre100382]

I have an idea for  a character, an elf shaman who was kicked out of his house by his parents who could barely handle having an elf child, let alone a magic using one.  He has been raised the last few years with a Talsimonger who is from Cara'sir.    I am going for a combat mage with a bit of Talismongering on the side or something he might grow into.

B 3       
A 4
R 4
S 3
C 6
I 3
L 3
W 5
E 1
M 5

3 Points in Sorcery and Conjuring, 2 points in Blades, Pistols, Assessing, and Astral Combat, a point in Arcana and Enchanting.  He is a shaman with a Raven mentor spirit.  I would like some help with spells and weapon choice.  I have a weapon focus (sword) for astral combat.  I liked the "Body Glove" spell from "The Land of Promise".  Heal is always useful.  Any ideas?  I can link or post my rough draft if that will help.

[Thrass]

skill ratings of 2 or 3 are optimizations wise not advisable...

is this some kind of low bp build or is there a different reason you are holding back on the skills?

blades for a mage is not optimal I think... there is no reason to go into melee and dodge/unnarmed is as usefull for defense without the need of a weapon
you could of course drop agi to 3 to increase reaction to 5... you probably don't need the agility but reaction is always needed to dodge and boost your initiative

[cre100382]

The blades is a back up and an attempt to survive melee.  The build is 400 points, I didn't want to over specialize.  I only have about 25BP of gear, including the weapon focus and a couple months at my apartment.  What kind of starting gear should I have.  The combat mage in the core book looks lean on gear and I didn't think it was viable.

[rasmusnicolaj]

Lower your agility and raise charisma to 7.
You are generally waisting points on a lot of average attributes. You could specialize some more. As a combat mage you need to be fast so try to raise your reaction and intuition (lower logic and strength).
Drop the Sorcery and Conjuring Group.
You want Spellcasting 6, Counterspelling 4, Summoning 1 and Binding 4 as a minimum.
Ritual Spellcasting is a niche skill and you don't want banishing. Also drop astral combat. Always stunbolt astral opponents instead.
Blades is as mentioned not a good option. You will always be more effective with spells so I recomend dropping it. If you want a firearm skill then either automatics so you can do suppresive fire or heavy weapons so you can use an armtech MGL-6 grenade launcer (rememberairburst link) so you have versatility.
Instead get a Power Foci R4 with restricted gear. And a health sustaining foci R3 for the increased reflexes spell.

Spells:
Stunbolt, Stunball, Blizzard, Soundwave, Boom, Heal, Increase Reflexes, Trid Phantasm, Physical Mask, Levitate, Metal Wall. A mental manipulation spell.

Gear:
Optimize armor with form fitting body armor, securetech PP stuff and a leather jacket or something like that.
Get some sensory gear (glasses, earbuds, microsensors etc.)
Get a cheap commlink for a fake SIN and a better one for shadowrun biz.

Remember to take as many negative qualities as possible. If you wan't to be a combat mage you should get a mentor spirit that gives +2 to combat spells.

Rasmus

[Thrass]

get rid of blades take dodge or unnarmed...
it can dodge and block melee as fine as melee

[cre100382]

I was hoping for a broader build, so that if i don't like the playstyle, i can change tactics.

[rasmusnicolaj]

Broad isn't good.
If you use points on blades and things like that you will be a really lousy fighter and you will be less of a mage because you waste points on those skills. You will always be better of with spells so be as good with those as you can.
If you opt for being broad you will end up being mediocre at your skills and then you wont do your team any good.
Focus on magic and let the samurai's focus on shooting and beating the other side (and hide behind the troll when they shoot back).

Right now you have an attack pool with blades on 5. That is on average 1-2 hits. That isn't really hard to dodge for anybody. And even if you hit your DV will be around 5-6 and that won't hurt a lot on less you plan on fighting little girls without armor 

With spellcasting 6, magic 5, mentor spirit +2, specialization (learn that with your first karma) +2 and a power foci R4 you have a dicepool of 19 to attack. And then defaulting to a Stunbolt F7 you will start to take out you opponents.

That at least is my oppinion. Shadowrun is a game for specialists and the BP system supports that (skill rank 1 cost the same 4 BP as skill rank 6).

Rasmus

[Glyph]

I was hoping for a broader build, so that if i don't like the playstyle, i can change tactics.

There is nothing wrong with being a generalist, even if specialists tend to start out with a lot more power out of the starting gate.  The thing is, though, that if you get a skill group, you want it to be one where you will actually be using every one of those skills.  Some of the skills in the Sorcery and Conjuring skill groups are either niche skills or only marginally useful; rasmusnicolaj broke it down pretty well.  So ask yourself - will you actually be making use of skills such as banishing or ritual sorcery?  If not, then you might be better of starting out higher in a narrower spread of more consistently useful skills.  You can always round yourself out by picking up the other skills later.  Over the course of the game, specialists can pick up extra skills, and characters with broader skill sets get better at them.  So if your character is too weak, or alternately, winds up lacking a skill you decide you want, it's fixable.

The combat mage archetype has weapon skills, even though they are not that good, and redundant with the offensive capabilities he already gets from spells and spirits.  This is because it fits the concept they were going for.  There is nothing wrong with sacrificing a bit of power for the sake of a concept - if it is your concept.  If your combat skills are not an integral part of the concept, I would recommend dropping them in favor of boosting your magical abilities a bit more, instead.