I'm reasonably confident that modifiers refer to things in the "ranged combat modifiers table." Specializations are bonus dice. Those are added directly to your pool, they are not modifiers. Modifiers are those things such as smartlinks and... precious little else, in ranged combat.

In any case, it doesn't matter. It's the difference between the specialization giving +1 to both pools or +2 to both pools. Splitting dice for gun bunnies still sux0rs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Boosted agility 10 + pistols 5 /2 = 7 dice + 2 light pistols + 2 for mentor spirit = 11 dice for each hand??? That would be pretty good...and 17 dice for a single light pistol, 15 for her predator.

If you check out my character she has twin light pistols because they go on gunslides and some people didnt like heavy pistols going on gunslides, but she also has a predator 4 strapped to her back. Imagine a samurai with two small swords that he dual wields, and one long/giant sword strapped to his back. Thats like the same thing with her guns.

I dont plan for her to be a spell slinger, its just the only way i could get her to have invis which is a vital part of her mentor relationship. It doesnt even matter if its good enough to fool most people. As long as sometimes its like she disapears right before your eyes.

Its to bad they made that skin pigmentation power so stupid. A white guy can turn albino or very tan. It should have let the adept turn any color and fade into the background. Each point of the power grants +1 on infiltration tests. Then I probably would have went full adept. I just want some way to visually camoflague with a power like chameleon's do.

To be truthful I don't see your sheet character matching your description of the character.

"Background wise, She is a princess with a bad attitude from a asian, korean area of seattle, who uses her influence skills to get what she wants." Ok... someone with a bad attitude that has a charisma of 6 doesn't quite make sense to me. I mean if you look at it a stat of 2 is the average while a stat of 3 is professional (at least in dealing with humans.) If she is a brat with fairly high social skills I feel it would be hard to RP a princess with a bad attitude during lets say open negotiations with a Johnson. I mean maybe you have the concept, but I can't quite follow it myself. You are also going to try eventually play her as kind of a assassin/infiltration character I'm not quite seeing that either. There are a lot of individual concepts you have for your character, but I feel the problem is they are so spread out that you might have a hard time doing anything with your character.

I see conflict between the character and the back story is Athletics (3) and saying she can't take it out doors but at the same time can run, climb, swim, and do gymnastics like a pro.

Also bringing up your magic by one will cost you 18 karma and with all the other skills you want to pack in I just don't see the character being useful until much farther in the game as an assassin/infiltration/spell caster.... I don't know unless your GM hands you gobs of karma your starting character does not change all that much over time. It's generally always a good idea to have your character be really good at a few things and then become a jack of all trades kind of character later in the game.

I don't mean to be harsh or anything, and I do feel like you have a good character concept. But I feel the sheet does not match the drapes.

If you boost your agility to 10, you have 10 + 5(7) /2 = 7 + 2 mentor spirit = 9. Specialization doesn't give you 5(7) with an additional +2, the 7 is all you get from it. And keep in mind that you have the twinkiest custom mentor spirit I have ever seen or heard of. If you play with a GM who has a problem with heavy pistols on gun arm slides, which is 100% allowed by the rules, you'd better give up on having a custom mentor spirit that gives a mundane bonus to exactly the thing you want your character to specialize in.

And you don't need improved invis to act like a chameleon. Just buy a chameleon suit. Improved invis is not all that fantastic. If you cast it at a low level, everyone will resist it and see you. And even if you cast it well, you'll still be seen by astral perception and ultrasound/radar vision with no problem.

You know what power does exactly what you want it to for .25 point per rank? Improved Ability: Infiltration. I am of the custom fluff school of gaming. At my table, as long as you where only using your color change abilities for hiding, and not Video output, I'd let it fly. Maybe you don't have precise conscious control the the power you just focus on blending.

Running with the idea of getting the fantasy you want modeled in a way that doesn't make your character blow, I would HIGHLY encourage you to heed the dual wielding warnings and not game-mechanically halve your dice pool and double your penalties as your default move. I know how hard it is to hear good advice when it comes in the form of trashing your idea, but realize that you did get good ideas for to kick butt holding two guns. To me, if you get to see your character going that when you are imagining the game you have what you want.

Next up Social Dice. I Would encourage you to beef up your con and nothing else. She SHOULD be defaulting on etiquette, leadership, and Negotation. I kind of like the fact that she can fast talk her way out of paying for dinner whenever she wants, but a trained negotiator would take her to the cleaners. I see a lot of good RP coming from here thinking resenting getting smacked down Con doesn't work.

Agreed. There is a good character concept there, but it seems like there are a few skills and things that don't quite fit, or will be useless for quite a long time (well mainly depending on the karma the GM gives him/her.)

A character who is decent at everything is good at nothing, but a character who can't yet do half the things in their character concept might just want to tweak it a bit more.

Also agreed on the Con so if you took it at four and dropped the rest it would free up 14 bp and if you drop your charisma down by one also gives 10 more bp so all you would need to do is squeeze out 1 more bp and there you go you last point of magic (yay!) I think this would help flesh out your character just a little bit more since you can then actually use spell casting.

Also there is a chameleon suit which maybe if she is obsessed with chameleon's maybe she just never takes it off? I mean the thing does change color and makes it harder for people to spot you. Also after that you can just aim to get some sustaining focuses to help with your invisibility for more chameleon invisible power.

Why do you have 3 athetics and dodge 5 pistols 5? If you plan on playing the character for longer than 3 minutes, dodge 4/pistols 6 is a superior configuration because its cheaper to advance 4-> 6 than 2 x 5 -> 6

But this brings me neatly onto my next point. As you don't plan on rigging, gymnastics dodge is an good substitute for dodge, and is easy to advance with adept powers.

So I'm suggesting

-5 dodge
+1 pistols
+1 athletics group
+1 Unarmed combat
+2 unspent BP

Would give you +1 dice when shooting, -1 dice when dodging, but give you +1 dice when flipping out, gives you the ability to punch people, and frees up 2bp.

Specalisation is a dice pool modified and is added after the split. So this gives you 16 dice pre split +2 per pool post split.

To be honest, I'd ditch the mentor and just ask the DM nicely with sugar on top if you can get laser sights or smartgun links to work with dual wielding. As dual wielding with 'even' dice pool splits is basically the suck, that probably won't be a problem and will get you were the mentor was going to get you anyway, and then you can take both being a mystic adept abd the mentor outside and set it on fire.

If the level of bastardry from the DM blocks the lasersights thing (the bastich! dual wielding with laser sights is a classic action movie trope) it doesn't actually say you have to split the pools evenly.

So you can probably go hammerli firing first 3 dice + 2 spec predator firing second 13 dice + 2. The hammerli will cause defense pool penalties, and you never know, it might actually hit something.

What about using dermal sheathing with ruthenium polymer covering?

Because then he'd have to sneak around on runs naked. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It has its place in social infiltration. You can change skin colour and tatoos on a whim.

An infiltration suit for runs, and the ruthenium dermal sheath for the "talk to your mentor spirit" quests? Could even become an obsession for the character - all the clothes can change colors, maybe the furniture too...

The full-body stuff is not available at chargen.
In fact, with the chameleon option, only lvl. 1 would be and that only covers the upper torso.

Can't beat the good ol' chameleon suit, anyway.
I always thought about that type of dermal sheathing as a rather cosmetic mod.

BTW, does the character have to be awakened?
The whole princess concept would work out perfectly with a biosam, too.

If you do keep the Mentor, you might just do +2 to Infiltration Tests and +2 to Illusionism spells...... to fit the flavor also....

Another thought might be to try out the Trickster mentor as well.... I had a (very different) magician/ninja build focused on Illusion and Con with that....

As for dual-guns, you need a lot of dice to pull it off well, which can become prohibitive quick...

I actually would suggest some Bioware though, what you can gain for 1-2 Essence can really be worth using up the Magic point (but it's a BP sink so be careful)...

Muscle Toner for more Agility, Cybereyes tricked out to minimize vision mods and have Smartlink built in, some tailored pheromones could help the social stuff also..., BUT, the kicker is the Synaptic Boosters, you can get those extra 2 IPs for 1 Ess instead of 3, yes it's pricey, but then you still have 4 Magic left over (5-1), so you could spare 1-2 on casting and get to use that Invisibility (but make sure you have 5-8-ish dice, 2 Magic, 2 skill, +2 illusion bonus from Mentor, maybe even specialize in Illusions for another +2...).... you could also throw in a Reflex Recorder for pistols while you're at it... I've used this basic idea with a sniper/adept build that I really liked...

Don't give up, just be prepared to be flexible... two guns also come in handy in terms of ammo, even if you don't split the pool.... and when in the open vs. a go-gang, maybe your big pool can split nicely and have some fun...who knows....

-The mentor spirit was the genesis for this character. It came to me one night before bed. There is no way I would get rid of it.
-I dont see how being athletic has anything to do with survival or survival skills. Being able to climb walls like a pro doesnt mean you can forage for food, build shelters, or trap animals. Neither does swimming, jumping, or even the attribute strength.

I have made changes though. Ok i dropped the influence group, and took con(spec seduction) and etiquette which gave me back 14BP. I dropped athletics down to 1, not because of the survival comment but just because its not that useful(yet). Thats 20BP. I used 25bp to get my last point of magic which I used for another 1PP....just kidding. I gave it to spellslinging. That left me with 9BP. I then retook spellcasting, and spec'ed illusions for 6BP.. This left me with 5 BP.. I relearned improved invis and now I have 0BP left again.

I can cast magic but I suck and cant resist the drain but it counts heh.

I reworked her social just because I liked what you guys said about her being a princess and not really being a lawyer or leader. And I took a little etiquette so she can try to fit in to most circumstances...until things dont go her way heh/has to pull her guns out.

The camo suits are cool but I wanted her invis to be a power from within, an ability her mentor grants to her.

@weavermount thanx improved ability infil was a great idea but I kinda wanted the cloaking powers before infil gets raised. She will definately be getting that eventually.

Ok I think you guys have cut up my chick enough. Her social and athletic skills took a dive just so she could be more "legal" or "fitting". There isnt anything else she can sacrifice to change something else.

However one builds, the adept power is clearly the worst way of getting additional IPs. Sinking 3 PP into anything should make you Da Bomb, not "Yeah, 3 IPs. Me too.".

As you have two pistols and consider high reflexes unfitting for chameleons anyway, why not leave it be? A synaptic booster 1 + Muscle Augmentation 2 (+some leftover money) cost 20 BP (30 if factoring in the lost magic point). You have up to four attacks per IP, with more dice. If you buy magic 5(effective 4), you have 5BP left (from not buying magic 6). So you could put a first magic point into magic power. As overall magic is only 4 now, 33 karma get you a magic power of 3. Thats less than half the cost, compared to your build right now.

Or you could play the adept side, based on infiltration, perception and situational awareness. Seeing that your original concept of casting stealth spells on top of all else will need 100+ karma to slowly start working, mostly due to 72 karma needed for magic 9.

No, your forgetting about agility boost. Your lowering the dice pool to her main skill.

If i used synaptic boosters 2 it would look like this:
Magic 1/5 4/5 (+30bp) (2mp/2pp) (freeing up 35BP)
Agility Boost power: Magic 4 + Agility boost 3 = 7 dice average hits 1-2
Pistol dice pool: Agility 5 + 1-2 AB + Light Pistols (7) = 13/14 dice split up would be 6/7 +2 mentor = 8/9 dice per pool.
Synap booster 2 = 32 BP which leaves me with 3 whole whopping BP to spend on what??? another spell?? 13 BP if i only boost magic up to 3 and then thats lowering my AB power more. 13 BP would give me spellcasting 4 and con 3. That would be 8 dice for casting F1-2 invis spells(magic 1 + spellcasting 4(illusion +2) + mentor 1 = 8).

hmmmmmmm

Current:
Agility Boost: Magic 6 + AB 3 = 9 dice average 2 easy
Pistols pool: Agility 5 +2 + Light pistols (7) = 14 dice or more = 7 dice per pool +2 mentor = 9 dice per pool at minimum.
Invis spell: Magic 1 + spellcasting 1(illusion +2) + mentor 1= 5 dice...

Resist improved invis with body tests since its physical right? hmmmm....

Ok now which would serve her better immedeately? Taking people down quickly or being sneaking around? Id rather be able to shoot my way out of trouble, like you guys said invis people can stil be heard and seen so thats not a great skill to fall back on. Im sticking....

*edit. Im reversing my philosophy on quickness and chameleon dont mix. They may move slow, to sneak up on things and not be seen by predators, but they attack FAST. When they shoot their tongues out they have to use high speed camera's. Therefor...high reaction, IP in battle = ok hehehe. But it still goes against her personality and totem to have to run.

I remove 1 average hit from agility boost, but I increased agility by 2. Thats not less.

I´d buy synaptic 1, as eight possible attacks per round seems sufficient. Use heavy pistols if you consider that "too little". It will do more and costs maybe 1%.

If you face strong opponents, twelve LP shots will still do nothing, considering you look at 2-3 hits on average. If you are content with decreasing the reaction pool of your enemies, fine. Else, not so.

Well if you did actually drop the adept IP thing you could then cast force four magic spells. You can always bump your IP's to four with a sustaining spell and then after that you can get your hands on a force four sustaining spell focus then just always have four IP's at the cost of some (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and 8 karma (well worth it.) Having a magic of four will take you farther overall then the 30 bps you have attached to just giving you 3 IP's. With doing things like having a spirit put a force four invisibility, and can also boost your movement (as well as being a wingman that can actually help you out.) Also you can drug yourself out and give yourself 2 IP's for the very beginning of the game.

Think about it because it's not a bad idea and it will allow your to rock more later in the game.