Emo Samurai's dedicated character page. Options

[emo samurai]

[Glyph]

I don't find Magic of 5 and spellcasting of 4 to be overpowering at all. Even for the example given (Willpower of 3 and counterspelling of 4), that's rolling 9 dice against someone rolling 7 dice - hardly an overwhelming advantage, especially since you need one net hit to even affect the target at all. And that's assuming that the target doesn't have/use any Edge. Actually, the mundanes were much worse off in SR3.

And there's nothing wrong with making a character who is actually effective at doing his main specialty! Does the street sammie get a Raecor Sting instead of an Ares Alpha, because the NPC with a body of 3 and armored clothing deserves more of a fair shot of surviving?

[Ryu]

I clearly labeled "no magic 5" as personal viewpoint, not a problem of emos character concept. Partly because power levels always depend on playing style.

1.) Spell defense is the exception, not the rule. You only have spell defense if you are in LOS of the teams mage. A deadly proposition for the mage, if you read up on "noticing magic" (skill 4 is threshold 2 on a perception test).

2.) 9 dice (+mentor bonus) +foci.

3.) Use of edge and resulting successes.

Initiatory groups used to be a cheap way of making initiation cheaper. They offer enough advantages without that. Personal preference again - my mage was a member of the Illuminates of the new Dawn. Not much of a problem here, now that magic does not automatically increase.

The "Hunted Flaw" is not just an "Extra Enemy"-flaw. If they have no idea how to find you, you don´t get any points. Even for that you´d only get points in an Hongkong setting (where the Yellow Lotus comes from IIRC).

@Emo: What do the other players of your group play btw? Is the campaign seattle-based or international?

[emo samurai]

I don't really have a group right now; this character is only for when I do have one. And even if they don't know how to find my dude, they could come down hard if my dude lets the physical mask slip in the wrong place. They'll constantly be searching for Shen because of his audacity. They don't need to know where he is; they just have to try to kill him if they find him.

[stevebugge]

[Ryu]

Hunted means that they are after you, not that they´d want to be. Waiting for something ain´t hunting it. Still depending on 60+ flaw points?

I suggest giving the character stronger ties to seattle/whatever setting used. Something along the lines of "that PRC biz was some time ago, now I´m an established mage in the mafia/chinese comunity/whatever".

There where never more than two freebie connections, and those are gone. Pay up, chummer.


And one thing: Until you have a regular position inside a group, by all means use canon rules / ask for THEIR houserules. Don´t make characters depending on modded rules.

[Azralon]

[emo samurai]

[Glyph]

There's nothing wrong with having a Body of 4 and a Strenth of 1. Hell, by the rules you could have a Body of 7 (using the exceptional attribute quality) and a Strength of 1. The two attributes are not tied together, although a huge discrepancy between the two should be explained somehow in your background. A Strength of 1 is a potential disadvantage, though, and also means that your character is unusually weak. A Strength of 2 could just be a couch potato, or a thin ascetic monk, or someone slight of build, or someone recovering from surgery or an illness. Strength of 1 is harder to explain.


I do agree with Ryu on one thing, though. If you don't have a group yet (I had assumed you were making this character according to a specific GM's house rules), then you probably should make this a canon character. That means even more paring down. Here are some suggestions:

First, get rid of the (non-canon) hunted negative quality, as well as the spirit bane negative quality, to bring your negative qualities down to the allowable 35. Now you need to trim 30 points. First, reduce assensing and perception both down from 3 to 1. You have a nice healthy intuition score to use with those two skills, so basic proficiency is all that you really need to start out with. Then, pare contacts down to 16 points instead of 30 - that is still plenty of points for a starting character's contacts.

Another suggestion that I would make - instead of spending 28 points on Etiquette: 4 and Instruction: 3, I would change gymnastics: 3 to dodge: 2 with a specialization in ranged, to get 2 more points, then spend the 30 points to get the Influence skill group at 3. You will have 4 social skills at 3, making your character much more versatile.

[emo samurai]

I'm thinking of running this for a game that I GM, with every 3 or 4 runs being handled by a player. These will be my house rules, so that handles that. Also, my character won't be the type to use negotiate and con. His one-sided arrangement with the consiglieri should make that clear. And I'lll make this with Strength 2 rather than 1; 1 means he has no calcium, which would go against the idea of his home village being prosperous under his care.

[emo samurai]

I have a new twist to my character that I want to add. I'll make it so that his village is very peaceful, and he acts in more or less the same capacity. The Triad never invades or does anything to him. He leaves because he's bored. Counseling 5 or six people a day and helping at least two couples elope a week does something to a man. It makes him bored, seeing the same two or three human stories repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before. He goes to Seattle in search of something new. Instead of being sweet and benign, he's become very cheerfully nihilistic, kind of like Angelus. One of his quotes will be "Ten thousand people with the exact same problem: they bored me to death." Shadowrunning for him will be for kicks. I think he'll run a parody religion that he'll be the high priest of. Each week, he'll preach something even more stupid and arbitrary than what he preached the past week, just to see how long it takes for people to catch on to the fact that he's making fun of them.

The neo-Confucian society that he lives in will contribute to this; to him, the family structure is devoted solely to perpetuating itself while providing nothing in the way of variety to the world at large. He will see them as stagnant pools of human waste, festering in their blighted cycles of birth, consumption, and arranged marriage. The stasis inherent in such a social structure will do that to an intellectual.

I wonder how I'll modify his defects. He won't have hunted anymore, since the Triad doesn't hate him. He won't need the Mafia boss either; I guess he'll stick with just having an awesome fixer and orihalcum dealer. He doesn't seem to go for the whole group thing anymore; maybe I'll keep the "incompetent: banishing and ritual spellcasting." He still likes spirits; air spirits let him fly, earth spirits make walls, and fire spirits burn things. Maybe I'll have him be crappy at driving, since he doesn't need to drive and doesn't feel like learning to drive just to fit in.

Also, what was great about ritual spellcasting in 3rd edition?

[emo samurai]

Dude, I had a great idea. I'll GM the dude's introduction to the party. Lone Star will pay the party to investigate an anomolous, sort of living mass that is being worshipped by a very large cult in the Barrens. When they manage to join the cult, they'll find the Flying Spaghetti Monster floating in midair touching worshippers with its noodly appendage. When the find and confront the High Priest, he'll tell them that this all is just some bullshit parody religion that he cooked up just so he could break the fools' hearts. It'll end with him asking for help from the team's mage to float a large speaker in the middle of the illusion in order to project the spaghetti monster's unholy screams of terror as a gigantic illusory fork unravels it and feeds it into the mouth of whatever thing could eat the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The run will end with the dude joining the party.

[Azralon]

Emo, despite what the whispers are telling you, there is no creative muse named Cthulu.

Other than that, carry on sir.

[emo samurai]

My dude hates religion because it represents everything arbitrary and oppressive about society. He'll preach the way of Flying Spaghetti Monster because he likes to make fun of stupid people, and he'll kill him because he wants to break their hearts.

[Glyph]

I think being a disaffected cynic is a better way to go than the "hunted by the Triad" thing, which has honestly been done before too many times.

Be careful how you do the run, though. A bloodthirsty party might just shoot the "high priest" on sight. For new characters, it is often better to introduce them in a simpler way, such as them being rescued from a corporation during a run, or being introduced by the team's fixer when the group needs the new character's specialty for a job. The problem with the run is that it depends on the players acting a certain way for it to work.

So either you railroad your players, or you wind up being surprised when they decide to do things differently than you had planned. Maybe they will see the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing as something with potential - and if your character says he's bored with it, they threaten to shoot him if he doesn't keep casting the illusion so they can collect "donations". Or maybe the religious nut in the party will get upset by your character's anti-religious views: "How dare you profane Azathoth's unholy name!"

[emo samurai]

They'll be told to be subtle about it. It'll be a reconnaisance run, to scope out the place and assess whether or not it's Universal Brotherhood lite. All Lone Star wants is to find out if the background count is indicative of enormous amounts of magical activity. The place is warded well, so the runners will be sent in instead of astrally projecting cops. I have no idea how to stretch this out. The runners can't kill people or anything, since the cops don't know how volatile a cult in the Barrens is. They're betting on very. So they don't want any martyrs.

And his philosophy? The first and last oppressors of the people ARE the people. Oppressive institutions can not exist without the consent of the people, which is won either through fear or apathy. Religion, even folk religion, is indicative of this to him.

[emo samurai]

Here's my new character sheet. It'll be for a 450 BP game with infinite flaws allowed.

[ Spoiler ]

Shen, Male Elf Shaman (30 BP)

Attributes(200BP)

Body 4
Agility 2
Reaction 3
Strength 2
Charisma 6
Intuition 5
Logic 5
Willpower 4

Special Attributes (50 BP)

Magic 6

Edge 1

Active Skills (164 BP)

Spellcasting 6
Counterspelling 6
Ritual Spellcasting 6
Summoning 4
Binding 4
Banishing 4
Assensing 4
Dodge 4
Perception 4
Focus Design 4
Gathering 4
Enchanting 4
Alchemy 4
Intimidation 4
Astral Combat 4

Knowledge (30 Free BP)

Magical Theory 6
Existentialist Philosophy 6

Language Skills

Chinese N
English 6
Japanese 6
Aztlaner 6

Edges (20 BP)

Astral Chameleon
Magician

Flaws (+100 BP)

Sensitive System (15)
Spirit Bane (Chinese Ancestral Spirits) (10)
Hunted, Family (10)
Incompetent, Pilot ground vehicle (5)
Allergy, Severe, Artificial Food (20)
Homemade Telesma (20)
SINner(5)
Obvious shamanic mask (5)
Scorched (5)
Gremlins (5)
Uncouth (20)

Contacts(24 free BP)

Leggy Starlitz, International Fixer Extraordinaire (4 loyalty/6 connection)
Timothy Hunter, Talismonger and orihalcum trafficker (5 loyalty/4 connection)
Bartender: (3 loyalty/2 connection)

Spells (30 BP)

Physical Mask
Trid Phantasm
Heal
Levitate
Improved Invisibility
Lightning Ball
ManaBall
Improved Reflexes
Oxygenate
Stunball
Analyze Truth

Equipment(8350 :nuyen: 2 BP )

Armor Jacket(900 :nuyen: )
Fake SIN 3 (3000 :nuyen: )
Super-contact lenses (450 :nuyen: )
Low Lifestyle 2 months (1000 :nuyen: )

450 BP

What do you think? He'll come in at party average, so he'll be more powerful when he comes in and he'll know more spells.

[FrankTrollman]

[Glyph]

Looking at the character, I see a few problem areas.

First, that last point of Magic should cost 25 points, so getting a Magic of 6 actually costs 65 points, not 50.

For active skills, I am going to assume that you are using a house rule that lets a character start out with a skill group at 6, because solely by the book, skill groups are capped at 4 at char-gen, and you can only have one skill at 6. It looks like there is a skill missing, though. Assuming the Sorcery group at 6 (60 points) and the Conjuring group at 4 (40 points), you only have 3 more skills at 4 (48 points). Is there one skill of rating 4 that is missing? Etiquette, I hope - this character has no social skills, an especially surprising omission considering his background. Other than that, looking good, although he seems limited solely to magical skills - no sneaking, vehicle, computer, etc. skills.

Knowledge skills are also limited to only one at 6 - is this another house rule?

The Addiction negative quality can only be taken for a substance that has a negative effect on the character's health - it specifically states that things like caffeine, sugar, and nicotine can not be used. I would definitely re-work this. Right now, it looks munchkinish.

The Hunted negative quality and free contacts are more house rules, I assume.

Spells look good, except that I would maybe replace at least one of the area spells with a bolt spell.

Low Lifestyle costs 2,000 a month. Squatter is the one that costs 500 a month.


Overall, good character. Attributes are far from min-maxed, and convey the mentally-oriented character from your background. Definitely focused on the magical end, skill-wise. Hopefully you have one or more social skills, though, to give your character at least one other thing that he's good at. Also consider the skill groups carefully - they are a bargain, points-wise, but only if you actually plan on using every skill in the group. Otherwise, you would be better off buying the individual skills that you will actually use.

[emo samurai]

Yes, lots of them are houseruled. The only real mistakes are the addiction to gummy bears and lifestyle costs. And I plan to use all the skills. Should I add more incompetencies to make up for the loss in build points? Plus, we'll be able to subtract from radius to add dice to spellcasting, so cast at about .5 radius, we'll be making them superpowered bolts.

[Shrike30]

Normally, you'd be losing dice to reduce the radius... sort of a "concentrate harder on your control so you don't wipe out EVERYONE" effect. The drain codes for area-effect spells really aren't properly oriented if you're going to be able to turn them into bolts for another 6-ish dice.

[emo samurai]

Oh, so decreasing radius DECREASES dice. Got it.

[emo samurai]

My character's cynicism won't just be postmodern disaffection. Most of that will be a hoax that he builds up around himself. In all his years as the countryside's resident wise man in the pagoda, he never, in his eyes, made a difference. Take the example of lovers he helped elope. Whenever lovers eloped under his guidance, even if they managed to evade their parents, their relationship would fall apart for some stupid reason. The woman would get pregnant and the man would run away, one would be unfaithful, or one of them would rush back into the arms of their selectively adoring parents out of fear. For every positive change in the character of the people, there were a thousand patterns that they reinforced. The young tradesman who came to enjoy his craft under Shen's guidance would grow up to be an oppressive, distant father. The idealistic son of a corrupt noble would become corrupt and incompetent after usurping his parents. And so on, and so forth. He blames religion and society out of a need to blame something arbitarily, if somewhat justifiably. His philosophy is that, in the end, you can't guide stupid people. The dependence that that creates just encourages their stupidity. They need to guide themselves. If he returned, they would probably hail his absence as some great quest of wisdom that they, in their humble laymanness, could never possibly understand and go back to selectively interpreting his word. His Flying Spaghetti Monster cult will just be one great lesson in spiritual independence. The isolation of the city, in his eyes, helps to mitigate those factors that are prevalent in his home society while it reinforces new patterns of oppression and ignorance that he is only coming to understand.

[emo samurai]

This talk of nihilism got me thinking; another character concept would be a rogue priest who came down with a bit of the old existentialism.

[Glyph]

Remember the genre that you're in, though. Disaffected cynics and/or anarchists may be an interesting concept in traditional good vs. evil settings such as D&D, but they are practically the default mode in a distopian, cyberpunkish game like Shadowrun.

That could be a fun game, though. A bunch of bitter nihilists, all trying to out-angst each other. :D