Mentor Spirit Bat?, Best newb mage spells? Options

[Abbandon]

What would be some modifiers for a Bat Mentor Spirit?

Also what are some spells a newbie mage should start with? Healing, attack, initiative boost, armor spell?

[Redjack]

Not sure about the bat, but here is a long thread about spell selection.

[Ravor]

"A good Mage has the power to kill you with her mind, but a great Mage has the wisdom to use her trusty predator instead."

*Edit*

Also as a general rule of thumb, you'll want to burn at least one point of Essence to get some choice implants, most notably pimped cybereyes to keep magical LOS when corp-sec figures out that controling eviromental factors is a fairly cheap way to hinder Runner Teams. (Personally I'm not convinced using bioware for your extra IPs isn't a fairly good deal if magical security is run realistically either, but most people think burning that much Essence isn't an option...)

Also no matter what, make sure that you are still useful even if your mojo is completely denied to you, in fact strive to only use magic when the mundane is denied to you, and never, ever assume that you will have time to clean up your magical fingerprints.

[Glyph]

The Bat totem was in Magic in the Shadows for SR3, but wouldn't quite translate into SR4. So it's either whatever your GM decides, or whatever you run by your GM that he agrees to. Off the top of my head, you could get +2 to Detection spells and Air Spirits, and -1 to Combat spells. But there are all kinds of versions you could come up with. And mentor spirits can have different names and aspects, so you could easily have a Bat mentor spirit that is essentially the same as Raven or Owl.

For spells, magicians are real Jack of all Trades, but you need to be more focused at char-gen, so think about what your major role in the team is, and select spells for that role - stealth, information-gathering, offense, and so on. But have a few spells in other areas, too, to remain versatile. And while some mundane skills help, I disagree with Ravor on one point. Magic is your main function, and things such as guns should only be backup. You will be a lot more effective manabolting someone than shooting them most of the time.

[kzt]

One mage in the group should have heal. Maybe two. It's extremely useful if the group also has improved invisibility and physical mask.

After that it seems really hard to lay out hard and fast rules. It's probably good if each mage has some spell that can be used to deal with annoyances like force 6 spirits engulfing their friends or themselves.

[Lilt]

Depending on how your GM rules attribute-boosting spells, the Increase [Attribute] spells can be very useful. The slight ambiguity is over whether or not the spell's force must equal or exceed the attribute before the spell is cast, or the spell's force must equal or exceed what you're wanting to raise the attribute to. I personally read it that it must equal or exceed the attribute at the time of casting, then the attribute is boosted as appropriate, limited by the force of the spell in hits and the augmented maximum. IE: a human mage with Willpower 5, casting Increase Willpower 5, would boost their willpower to 9 assuming 4 or 5 hits on casting. A dwarf could reach 10, or 12 if he bought the Exceptional Attribute (Willpower) quality. The drain codes are low too, so you can overcast it fairly safely and still buy the hits to make the drain.

Sure, this +4 dice on drain is offset by -2 to resist drain and -2 to cast, but that's actually a good trade in some ways. See combat spells to understand why: one hit on drain offsets +2 spell force; one hit on casting increases damage equivalent to +1 force.

To remove the associated penalties and make it an all-round bonus, consider giving it as an innate spell to a Spirit of Man and getting them to sustain it on you. Binding an appropriate spirit and using it for spell sustaining at critical moments works to, or using spell binding spirit service to keep it on you for a few days.

Increase Willpower is probably best if there are multiple mages of different traditions on the team, that way you can sustain the spell to give them a nice boost for Conjuring and similar. Also, increases to Willpower increase your stun damage track, making it less likely you'll be KOed by drain. Otherwise I'd consider the other drain attribute your tradition uses:

• Increase Charisma can make you into a functional face (particularly elves with an augmented maximum of 12, thus 11 dice even if you have no skill)
• Increase Intuition (for Buddhists and similar) makes you very good at perception, assensing, stealth (except infiltration), outdoors skills (except survival), and some knowledge skills. It also boosts initiative.
• Increase Logic makes you good at other knowledge skills, mechanical skills, medical skills, and demolitions. A high logic, however, does not an excellent hacker make as they tend to use Skill + Program Rating.

Remember, any of these could be cast on team-mates too. That Samie who took Demolitions 1 and only has Logic 2 might be more of a liability normally, but boost his logic to 9 and he'll be disarming that bomb in no time.

Cast them on spirits for even more fun. Spirits often use Attribute + Magic rolls to use powers. Spirits may have low augmented maximums, a force 4 spirit probably has mental attribute maximums of 6 (ask your DM, YMMV), but +2 to the attribute used is equivalent to having a spirit 1 force higher for a number of associated powers. Increase Willpower is notable here as Willpower's probably the most commonly rolled attribute for spirit powers (and increases the spirit's stun track), Charisma is also useful for Influence and Animal Control (amongst others), Intuition is good for Search and Divining (probably a few more) and boosts initiative, I can't think of any spirit powers that use logic.

it's notable that, unless you get a manna version of these spells, they won't work on astral forms. Spirits will need to become dual-natured somehow (with materialization, possession, or inhabitation).

It's also notable that the FAQ rates spirit possessing a living creature to have mental attributes maximums higher than you might expect, giving them (Attribute + Force) x 1.5 rather than Force x 1.5. IE: if a force 4 spirit possesses that guard with 2 willpower, their augmented maximum is 9 (rather than the 6 a materialised spirit would have).

[Abbandon]

Ha we came up exactly with +2 to detection and +2 to air spirits. We had problems agreeing to the negative modifier though.

We were going to have a bat shaman take a willpower+charisma test to avoid becoming irrational and do everything in his power to get back together with friends. Successes nuetralize how many turns he has to spend doing that starting at 3. Like a Horse Shaman.

I thought it would be cool to have a will+char test and the successes help nuetralize a -3 modifier until he is back in the company of friends.

Theres also just suffering a - any time he isnt with friends or exposed to day light.

Choosing spells is HARD. Theres so many that you need. I wish you could buy them in groups or something. Like 10 karma per rating in a spell catagory like detection or illusion.

Well here is the CS for my guy if you wanna rip on it hehe.: