Running mage is running., No, that's not a memetic reference. Options

[Tanegar]

Concept: An old (55+) ex-wage mage fleeing from corporate assassins after uncovering a monstrous experiment.

Background:

[ Spoiler ]

Arthur Garrett was a company man, through and through. He was born just a couple of years after the Awakening, grew up in an Ares corporate enclave, tested positive for magical talent at an Ares job fair, went to MIT&T on an Ares corporate scholarship... you get the picture. He spent thirty-five years in Ares Macrotechnology's Magical Research division, rising to the rank of Chief Training Officer in their Seattle branch: his job was to train younger mages, who nicknamed him Merlin, after the old wizard in the King Arthur legends.

Two weeks ago he noticed something out of order in the division's bookkeeping. Money - a lot of money - was disappearing. Ostensibly it was being spent on office supplies and other incidental expenses, but Garrett happened to know that none of the things supposedly being bought had actually been delivered. He decided to dig a little deeper; after all, it looked like somebody was fleecing the company, and that just didn't sit right with him. He never knew exactly what set off the alarm that destroyed his world. He discovered that the money was being diverted into something called Project Bloodstar. Ares had taken note of the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus' ability to force its victims to Awaken, and was trying to engineer a strain without the "side effects" (vampirism, etc). The lucky test subjects became comatose within moments of infection, and never knew the hideous deaths they died. Some weren't so lucky. Garrett was horrorstruck by the recordings. On his way to the VP's office with this evidence, he was stopped by two strapping young men who "wanted to talk."

Arthur Garrett noticed one of the men reaching under his jacket. Garrett wasn't stupid. He could see what was going to happen, what the company he had served so well for so long was going to do to him. He called on a Talent honed by years of study and practice and blasted both men before they could react. With the cunning born of years of corporate political maneuvering, he made it out of the building, out of the enclave, out of the secured part of the city, and into the Barrens, where he hoped they couldn't track him. He left behind everything he owned, save a treasured power focus that had been a gift from his favorite professor at MIT&T years before. He needed work, he needed money, he needed opportunities to strike back at the corruption he had uncovered. Surely a magician, even an old one, could find all of those as a shadowrunner.

Build:

[ Spoiler ]

Arthur "Merlin" Garrett

Human (0BP)

Positive Qualities:
Magician (15BP)
Mentor Spirit (Thunderbird) (5BP)
College Education (5BP)
Restricted Gear (Power Focus) (5BP)
Perceptive (5BP)

Negative Qualities:
Records on File (Ares) (-10BP)
SINner (Criminal) (-10BP)
Hung Out to Dry (-10BP)
Night Blindness (-5BP)

Total Qualities: 0BP

Attributes:
Body 2 (10BP)
Agility 2 (10BP)
Reaction 1 (0BP)
Strength 1 (0BP)
Charisma 5 (40BP)
Intuition 5 (40BP)
Logic 5 (40BP)
Willpower 5 (40BP)

Edge 2 (0BP)
Magic 5 (40BP)

Total Attributes: 240BP

Skills:
Sorcery (group) 4 (40BP)
Conjuring (group) 4 (40BP)
Influence (group) 3 (30BP)
Instruction 4 (16BP)
Assensing 3 (12BP)
Perception 2 (8BP)
Knowledge: Magical Theory 6
Knowledge: Seattle Talismongers 4
Knowledge: Ares Corporate Politics 4
Language: English N
Language: German 4
Language: Latin 4
Language: Classical Greek 4
Language: Arabic 4

Total Skills: 126BP

Spells:
Stunbolt
Invisibility
Detect Life
Heal

Total Spells: 12BP

Gear:
Power Focus 4 100,000Y
Fake SIN 4 4,000Y
Commlink 300Y
-Meta Link 100Y
-Vector Xim 200Y
Biomonitor 300Y
DocWagon contract (Basic, 1 year) 5,000Y
Medkit 4 400Y

Total Gear: 22BP

[mmmkay]

one bullet and he's down and can't get up*... infirm is really terrible**

*after taking damage you'd probably fail the get up test: body+willpower (2)... reaction 1 means you're a dog to all things nonmagical

**without levitate I'm not sure how you're going to substitute for climbing and general stealthiness

[jaellot]

This is awesome. Love this concept, even before clicking the Spoiler for his background. Sounds like a ton of fun waiting to be had.

[Whipstitch]

My least favorite thing about Infirm is the sheer number of "mental" disciplines it hurts. Remember, it says Physical Skills, not just Physical Skills linked to Physical Attributes. This means that by strict RAW you can't default Physical Skills like Perception, Tracking, Shadowing or Navigation either. So while the character above has Perceptive, an Intuition of 5 and a background that makes him sound sharp as a tack despite his age, by RAW he is basically Mr. Magoo-- his Perceptive quality won't even come into play unless he is on the Matrix or learns Assensing or pays double to pick up Perception. It's really too bad, since I do think there's a place in the game for a "You're just not as fit as you used to be" Quality. I just think Infirm is too harsh to really fill that niche as written.

[Critias]

Neat concept, but that's...well...pretty min/maxed. If you're okay with it and your GM's okay with it, though, knock yourself out. Looks like a cool background/personality to play.

[Glyph]

A few things seem a bit off. Thunderbird seems a bit wonky for someone who was a company man for many years - it just doesn't seem like the kind of mentor spirit that would be compatible with that. It is very strange that an academic mage such as this would not have an assensing skill. Infirm has already been touched upon - including the fact that his perceptive quality is useless since he cannot default to assensing or perception.

I'm not sure I would call him min-maxed. He looks that way at first glance - a lot of low stats and a lot of high ones. But half of the high mental ones aren't doing him much good, while the low physical ones make nearly any combat engagement nigh-suicidal. I know you were trying to approximate an older man, but honestly, I think the concept would work better as a support mage with more than that bare-bones allocation of spells.

I like the concept, a lot. But the execution of it has created a character who has, frankly, too many glaring weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Again, this would be less of a problem if he were more of a support mage.

[Tanegar]

A big part of the problem is that 400BP is ridiculously tight for magicians. I could drop the two extra points of Edge to gain, say, Assensing 3 and Perception 2.

I'm not averse to dropping Infirm, because it is such a hideously crippling quality, but then I have to come up with 20BP worth of other appropriate negative qualities because I just don't have 20BP to spare.

I see Thunderbird as an appropriate mentor for a corporate climber; remember, he wasn't some workaday wage-mage, he was a a low-to-mid-level executive in an important and highly funded division, with dozens of other magicians and probably hundreds or thousands of mundane employees reporting to him. You don't get to a position like that without the kind of strength that Thunderbird respects. I also like Thunderbird's disadvantage (composure test to avoid responding to an insult in kind) for a proud-wizard-brought-low kind of character.

[Karoline]

I back the dropping of infirm.

I mean, otherwise you are completely unable to do any sort of sneaking.

You literally can't see or hear anything.

And a ton of other things. Maybe take stuff like Incompetent (Running) and Incompetent (Palming) and two others. You get the same number of BP and it is a decent representation of being old and unable to do those things without completely destroying your ability to function.

[Glyph]

The Records on File and Vindictive qualities would both suit him rather well. And you don't really need any qualities to simulate his age - his low physical stat do that all on their own.

You know, sometimes I really wish Impaired (Attribute) wasn't stuck in the SURGE section, as it would fit a lot of characters like this one, physically, or something like an uneducated ork from the Barrens, mentally - representing stunted development, preventing the character from ever reaching their normal full potential. Ah, well.

Anyone else appreciate a title like "running mage is running", for a character who can't actually run? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Karoline]

Infirm actually does allow running (oddly enough) just not sprinting.

[Thanee]

A big part of the problem is that 400BP is ridiculously tight for magicians.

Only if you insist on maxing out everything... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Whipstitch]

You know, sometimes I really wish Impaired (Attribute) wasn't stuck in the SURGE section, as it would fit a lot of characters like this one, physically, or something like an uneducated ork from the Barrens, mentally - representing stunted development, preventing the character from ever reaching their normal full potential. Ah, well.

An alternative that I've suggested before in other threads on aging is seeing if the GM is willing to lift the gear requirements on Biosystem Overstress and give it a name change. Doubling Healing Intervals and halving the time before you start taking Fatigue damage isn't fun, (particularly when you consider Drain's chip damage) but it's still far more playable than Infirm is and it makes a fair bit of sense for an older runner. Aging is essentially the body failing to renew itself like it once did, after all, and fiction is rife with old guys who are fearsome opponents but cannot use their powers without grumbling about it the next morning.

[KarmaInferno]

Mebbe take Asthma and another five-point flaw instead of Infirm.

That's what I did on my 'grumpy old merc' character.



-k

[pbangarth]

An alternative that I've suggested before in other threads on aging is seeing if the GM is willing to lift the gear requirements on Biosystem Overstress and give it a name change. Doubling Healing Intervals and halving the time before you start taking Fatigue damage isn't fun, (particularly when you consider Drain's chip damage) but it's still far more playable than Infirm is and it makes a fair bit of sense for an older runner. Aging is essentially the body failing to renew itself like it once did, after all, and fiction is rife with old guys who are fearsome opponents but cannot use their powers without grumbling about it the next morning.

I like this one! Worth 10 BP, so throw in Weak Immune System for 5 more and an Allergy for 5 and you have a pretty good simulation of the physical challenges of someone who has lived a long time in a toxic environment (which is everywhere), for the same 20 BP as Infirm.

[Tanegar]

Build edited. Threw out Infirm in favor of SINner (Criminal), which I wanted from the start, and Records on File (Ares). When Merlin fled from the killers sent to cover up Project Bloodstar, Ares flagged his corporate SIN for corporate espionage and theft of corporate property. Also reduced Edge from 4 to 2 and used those 20 points to grab Assensing 3 and Perception 2.