Necromancer-Mage, ...lets see how long it survives. Options

[Machiavelli]

Hi folks,

i just started to play an "necromancer like" mystic-adept with the following stats:

Gender: Female
Metatype: Elf
Mentor Spirit: Dark Goddess
Magic Tradition: Black Magic
Drain: Willpower+Charisma

Konstitution: 3
Strenght: 1
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2

Charisma: 7
Logic: 2
Willpower: 5
Intuition: 5

Magic: 5 (4 on magic/1 for Adept powers)

Spellcasting: 5 (specialization on Manipulation spells)
Counterspelling: 4
Summoning (Invoking?): 5
Binding: 4
Athletics skill group: 1 (Gymnastics 2)
Influence group: 1
Perception: 3
Assensing: 1

Knowledge Skills:
Magic Theory: 6
History: 3
Anthropology: 2
Archeology: 4
Linguisics: 3
Ethnology: 3

Spells:
Manabolt
Manaball
Fireball
Imp.Invis
Phys.Mask
Heal
Impr.Reflexes
Sense Life
Clairvoyance
Influence

Positive Surge-Effects:
Claws
Fangs
Dermal Plating
Natural Venom (Cynide)

Negative Surge-Effects:
Extravagant eye-color (pearl)
Striking skin pigmentation (pearl)

Adept Powers:
Astral Perception (with gesture-geas)
Linguistics

Qualities:
Linguist
High-school education
Mystic Adept
*can´t remember, i know I have 5 ones*^^
Mentor Spirit

Flaws:
Spirit Bane (Blood-Ghosts)
Day Job Rating 2
Allergy (Silver/medium)

Sustaining Focus Force 3 (enough for 2 Initiative-passes of the increased reflexes spell)

I have to admit that I do this from my memories, because I don´t have the character with me at the moment. So it might be that I will add some minor additions this evening.

Maybe I should have added a question to this topic.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
I really tried to specialize this char and to maximize his effectivity. But this char. is definitely build to develop, not to be a combat-monster right away. Does anybody of you see some additonal ways to safe BP´s or to increase his starting-effectivity?

[Ryu]

- "not a combat monster right away" is a fail, you are soft-maxed to the core

- but you dumped all physical stats, so you are what some games call a "glass cannon".

- Spirit Bane (Blood Spirits) is a bit iffy in my opinion. Either the GM does not want to allow it, or you don´t want to have it.

- Why play a physical mage if all you really buy is Astral Perception?

[Ol' Scratch]

You don't have Diviniation. How are you a necromancer? And the Dark Goddess instead of the Dark King? Are you even of a Possession tradition so you can create zombies at the very least? And how do claws and cyanide make you a necromancer?

Is there some new use of the word that I'm just not familiar with?

[Muspellsheimr]

What you have is not even remotely close to a Necromancer. Do you have any idea whatsoever what a Necromancer is?

[masterofm]

Good job Muspellsheimr! You have just parroted what everyone else has said so far.

That being said you might want to reread some of SR 4 to get some of the rules down a little bit better. For instance you can't buy a skill group and then raise one of the skills during CG. It's all or none (so if you get athletics group you won't be able to raise gymnastics to 2.) Did you mean a drow elf instead of a necromancer? I can see more like you are trying to aim for some kind of vampire drow thing.... but other then that you don't have animate or mass animate, or any other type of spell that might even be linked with a necromancer. You also might want to look for an appropriate mentor spirit as you haven't mentioned which one you took.

Also what would a silver alergy and a day job do for a shadowrunner who happens to be a Drow or a necromancer? There are also no such thing as spirits (blood - ghosts,) there are blood spirits if that what you mean but remember spirits are not ghosts. Your character should either have Allergy common sunlight with mild or medium is a flaw I could see for a necromancer... probably I would go with common/mild sunlight. I would get rid of the day job as I don't think it would jive with a necromancer or drow/vampire wannabe.

"I will envelope you into the fold of the eternal night where hellfire and brimstone await... but first would you like fries with that? Mu hu ha ha ha ha ha ha! I am Jadis bringer of the seventh seals and cashier of stuffer shack! FEAR ME!"

[BishopMcQ]

I believe there may be some translation issues. (Konstitution instead of Body and a few others are what lead me to this assumption...)

Personally, I would reclaim the 25 pts from pushing Charisma to 7, keep it at 6.

Buy Arcana 4, and Assensing increase by 2 (from 1 to 3)

Drop Day Job--find anything else really...

Growth options could be Divination, Invoking, etc.

The build I'm suggesting is more of a classical Necromancer (dealing with/binding spirits for fun and profit) than a raiser of the dead.

[Riley37]

Under Mystic Adept please list the magical tradition, or at least the drain stat.

I see a pile of abilities. I do not see a character with a background, origin, motives, relationships or story.

What is this person's experience with Death? She's quite capable of killing people, but does she fear her own death, look forward to it, or have an idea of how she hopes to die? If she had any contacts, friends or teammates, would she miss them when they died?

[hyzmarca]

I believe there may be some translation issues. (Konstitution instead of Body and a few others are what lead me to this assumption...)

So do I.

I actually tried to rebuild the character from the ground up as a Kalma-worshiping Finnish Shaman. It was only when I was half way through with writing up Finnish Shamanism as a tradition that I came to the conclusion that creating essentially an entirely new character with only a rudimentary understanding of the original concept might be a bit pretentious of me.

And I still don't really get the original concept.

But I'm still going to recommend Finnish Shamanism just for the heck of it. There aren't enough Finnish characters in Shadowrun.

[Ryu]

But I'm still going to recommend Finnish Shamanism just for the heck of it. There aren't enough Finnish characters in Shadowrun.

There is one in my group, if it is any consolation.


What did I want to write in the first place? Ah, yes. Breaking skillgroups apart at chargen is legal, but it needs GM permission (as everything else).

[Machiavelli]

Yeah, sorry. I think i missed to give you some informations.

- Magic Tradition: Black Magic
- Drain: Willpower and Charisma
- Dark King would have fit better, but I neither liked the advantages nor the disatvantages. Dark Goddess seemed not to interfere with a necromancer-backround (whatever you define as a necro) and so i can play her a little bit shizoid.^^
- of course, "Konstitution" is Body in englisch, sorry for that. I´m mixing too many languages and hopefully I will never bother you with my spanisch/italien/french mixes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

@BishopMcQ:
- the character is an elf, whose max. charisma is 8. So i didn´t had to hardmax it with 25 points. Like Ryu said correctly "I´m softmaxed to the core"
- I have Arcana at rating 1, but I forgot to add it.

@Dr.Funkenstein:
- what is Diviniation? Isn´t this a initiation-power?

@Ryu: "- Why play a physical mage if all you really buy is Astral Perception?" - thats easy. Because you have to choose if you play a mystic adept focused on magic or on adept powers. I chose the magical side because it is more effective and if the char. survives long enough, I can buy some real nasty adept powers to update the magic-side.

I forged this char. on the basis of an mad-tomb-raider archeologist who originally planned to become a rich an famous (and of coure, powerful an mighty) professor or scientist in a big company, always lurking for magical artifacts etc. (therefore it´s good to be a language-genius) Her father was also a famous scientist who lost everything after the second crash. Without the financial backround of her family, she crashed completely after her SURGE changings took place and so she had no choice than hiding into the illegal hospital named "crypta" in the puyallup barrens. And there she is working until today for food and shelter, waiting for her chance to become as powerful as possible. I dislike the day-job in this hospital, too, but my GM forced me to work there as a good way to introduce my new char. to the existing group.

Basically, I tried to give her only the abilities from the start, that are absolutely needed to survive. Playing this char. is absolutely risky, because every shot could be the last. I actually do nothing else than summon ghost/spirits and send them for the enemy. But like I also said, this char. is build for the future and if she survives, there is a lot of potential.

The Surge Effects she has, are actually only a physical manifestation of her inner self. She is arrogant, deadly and bad to the bone. Typical for a black mage, she is also egoistic and power-seeking, but her mentor ghost also forces her to stay with one foot on the good side of the force.^^

Ah, and I didn´t play a voodoo-priest, because it´s too close to shamanism and I don´t like these feather-headed, drum-shaking, singing and dancing weirdos.^^ My spirits of man and the elemental ghosts I summon are scary as well.^^