Will bite and cast for BP, How to build a reasonable nosferatu magician Options

[Dragnar]

The campaign which will see this character come to live is a long way off, but it looks as if I'm needing that time building and rebuilding him. The character concept, quirks and outlook is done, it's just the stats that I can't quite get right.
Now, being nosferatu, while expensive, is nowhere near overpriced for all the qualities you get.
Full magicians, while expensive, are even undercosted for their power, realistically speaking.
Still, the combination of both leaves so few BP/Karma that it's difficult to do anything at chargen, so I turn to the chargen masters at dumpshock for help.

Has anyone build a nosferatu magician with 400 BP or 600-700 Karma that can actually do something? Getting a basic attribute spread (nowhere near the recommened and highly useful half points) and magic score leaves me with sorcery 3, confuring 3, summoning 3, binding 3, about 4 spells and almost no other skills, which is suboptimal.
Leaving out the often shunned ritual sorcery would be against the concept, as he is a voodoo houngan and those just have to be able to curse dolls.
Is it possible to build a starting character that can do other things than stunbolt and heal at the beginning?
Seems like I'll rely on the use of guardian and task spirits as magical skill wires.
Any way to save some points? Any pointers to more effect?

And a side question that came to me while looking for 35 BP of negative qualities (I really need those points): What is the disadvantage of taking the "infertile infected" negative quality, exactly? Do I really get 10 BP for promising not to use the utter cheese of transforming my whole group into nosferatu?

EDIT: Mistake pointed out by The Jake

[The Jake]

If you've taken Conjuring 3 why do you need to pay for Binding seperately?

That's 12 BP right there...

- J.

[Dragnar]

Gah, conjuring should be summoning. The kind of mistake you make while translating from a non-english version yourself. My bad.

[The Jake]

I have looked at the cost for playing Infected. Apart from ghouls they get very cost prohibitive unless you're playing in a high powered game.

- J.

[Glyph]

Nosferatu are very pricey, even in karmagen (where it costs 300 points, since it is treated as a quality rather than a metatype). Realistically, a starting nosferatu mage will be pretty bare bones - you don't have the points to be a nosferatu, a mage, and well-rounded in other areas. Here's one rough build, though:

[ Spoiler ]

Nosferatu Voodoo Mage

BREAKDOWN (400 Points)
Nosferatu Quality: 150
Core Attributes: 90
Special Attributes: 30
Race (Human): 0
Active Skills: 106
Other Qualities: +15
Contacts: 07
Resources: 08
Spells: 24

=Attributes=
Body: 3
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2
Strength: 2
Charisma: 7
Intuition: 3
Logic: 3
Willpower: 7
Magic: 4
Edge: 2
Essence: 5.0

=Qualities=
Magician (Voodoo tradition)
Mentor Spirit
---
Infertile Infected
25 more negative

=Active Skills=
Assensing/Auras: 1/+2
Binding/specialization: 5/+2
Influence Skill Group: 1
Perception/Visual: 1/+2
Sorcery Skill Group: 4
Summoning/specialization: 5/+2

=Spells=
8 Spells

Overall, it's not too bad. Plenty of room to grow, of course, but you start out with a decent spread of magical skills, the bare minimum to get by in other areas, are really good at resisting Drain, and have all of those nosferatu abilities. I capped Magic at 4 because it's better to buy it for 15 Karma later, than 25 build points at character generation.

Assuming knowledge skills consisting of 3 - 4's and 2 - 3's, this character would cost 680 Karma under karmagen.

[Dragnar]

Seeing that "Core Attributes: 90" line is sad, to say the least, considering the absurd savings you get for attributes at chargen, but it seems you're right that it's the only way to build such a char at all.
That'll impair the chars powerlevel further down the road. Bummer.

But isn't buying specialisations at chargen a bad idea, considering that's about the only thing which would actually become cheaper during play than at chargen?


Thanks for the rough build, though. It handily beats my attempts at "being able to actually do something else than nosferatu powers".

[Glyph]

Specializations are a bad idea at char-gen purely from a cost standpoint, but they are still a relatively cheap way both to get a +2 boost to one of your main dice pools, or to make the dice pool from a low skill respectable enough to get some successes from it. If you think the character would survive the first few missions without them, you could drop the four specializations and raise perception and assensing to 2, instead.

The core Attributes are a shame, but for a mage, you shouldn't need to do more than raise Body and Reaction by a point or two, and his Drain Attributes are nice and high. Plus, it's still better than what you could get for a normal human, who would need to spend 210 build points (assuming they also had a way to raise their Charisma and Willpower maximums, too).

By the way, I was off on the Attributes - went back and edited them. Definitely sad on the Attributes.

[Dragnar]

Looking at how strapped for points I already am, I think I'll drop specializations. I desperately need those BPs elsewhere. I just realized I'll technically need a force 3 sustaining focus for "alleviate allergy" if I don't want to light on fire when going outside (I don't). That's 9 BPs right there...
And regarding those new attribute values... I think I need to find a corner to cry in now...

Well, we thought about a higher powered campaign anyway, time to tell everyone in my group that I fully endorse doing so.