Remind me how to build a SR3 shaman, Back in the saddle, can't find the stirrups Options

[Sandoval Smith]

I'm joining in on a new game using the 3rd edition rules, and even after reading through the corebook on more time, am still finding myself awfully rusty, not having played SR since, like, 2007 (also, I could've sworn that there used to be a critique my PC subforum, but I haven't logged in since 2008, so...) Would anyone feel like doing a C&C of the below PC, let me know if I made any particularly big mistakes? Books used were the SR3 core rules and the player companion, starting character point buy.

STR 3
QUI 3
BOD 3
CHA 6
INT 5
WIL 6

ESS 6
MAG 6
REA 4
Combat Pool: 7
Spell Pool: 5

Skills:
Pistol - Ares Predator 2-4
Edged Weapon - Knife 2-4
Sorcery 5
Conjuring 3

Knowledge Skills:
Fences 2
Safehouse Locations 3
Magic 4
Sorcery 6
Cooking 5
Cuisine 1
Fashion 3

Language Skills:
English 4
Chinese 4

Gear:
Knife 30Y
Ares Predator - Smarlink I
Smart Shades I
3 clips Gel
3 clips ExEx
2x Concealable holsters 200Y
Secure Ultra-vest 350Y
Secure Long Coat 650Y
Tres Chic clothing 1000Y
Ordinary clothing: 50Y
Personal Comm Unit 2: 3000Y
Subvocal mic: 500Y
Middle lifestyle 5000Y
Low lifestyle (safehouse) 1000Y

Contacts:
Ork Hermetic Mage, level 1 (magical mentor)
Outcast Tir Noble, level 1 (society contact)

Magic:
Ball Lightning 4
Chaotic World 4
Flame thrower 4
Healthy Glow 1
Improved Invisibility 3
Stunball 3
Treat (exclusive) 6

[Glyph]

Your core magical skills should both be 6, and you are lacking in other skills - the last thing you need is redundant meatbody combat skills, when spells and spirits should comprise your offense. At least, not at the expense of more useful skills like etiquette or stealth. Similarly, spells, at least the opposed test combat ones, should be Force: 6 (spell Force is the TN, so a Force: 6 spell is twice as hard to resist as a Force: 5 spell, and three times as hard to resist as a Force: 4 spell) - one mana spell and one elemental spell should be plenty.

Is point buy what everyone is using? Because awakened characters tend to come out less powerful than they do under priority. Compare what you could get with priority character generation, if the GM allows it.

[Sandoval Smith]

Ah yes, now it's starting to come back, although my tendency to try and and spread things too thin certainly isn't limited to SR3. The option was for Priority or Point Buy, whichever we preferred, but I'd always preferred the granularity of Point Buy, and I thought I recalled Priority being slightly problematic because with an awakened elf you tended to end up with a lot of cash, a lot of attribute points, or a lot of skills, and kind of short on the other two.

[nezumi]

Attributes: Your Body and Qui are dangerously low. I'd probably reduce Str by a notch though.

Skills:
Drop the Knife skill. Knives are the most useless weapon in the game, and you don't have the strength for it anyway.
Definitely bump up your conjuring. Also I would consider Stealth and/or a social skill more valuable than the firearms skill. Your background skills need some work too, although I'm not the person to ask for that. I believe there's a few magical skills which feed directly into your active skills (like Magic Theory, or something related to artificing). Paranormal animals, magical sites, 'weird magic stuff', et al. are all likely to get some use. 6 points in food I suspect won't.

Equipment:
Is there a reason you don't have SLII? Your armor isn't especially tweaked either. No FFBA, no RTL jumpsuit. However, your quickness is so low, stacking armor probably isn't an option. As a note, I've never met a GM who would enforce QUI/CP penalties from armor when you're not stacking armor, so get the best armor you can get (armor jacket or camo, most likely). Your equipment list is a pred and a crappy knife, so I don't know what you're trying to conceal. Also consider replacing yoru tres chic clothing with an actual suit from CC, which will come with armor (or, again, suit + FFBA). If you've got money to throw around, modify up the armor with the special CC rules as well.

Spells ...
You're a shaman but you never state your totem! That's no good. Your spells are all over the place, so I couldn't guess what your specialty actually is. I'll just assume coyote.

Elemental manipulations are cool, but expensive. I'd carry at maximum one (unless you get a serious bonus to them). In exchange, bump up your stunball. Flamethrower/stunball is probably a nice combo.

Chaotic world is pretty useless. It'll be as effective as stunball, but has to be sustained, significantly reducing utility.

IMO improved invis at a 3 is basically a waste. Yes, spell force determines its resistance to dispelling. But a rating 1 spell dispells as though it's rating 2, and a rating 2 spell isn't much easier than rating 3.

I agree with Glyph that force 4 isn't the maximized choice. I tend to go with force 5 because it's easier on the stun. His comments are also valid though. I think the question comes down to 'fewer, bigger' vs. 'more, tamer'. However you have no speed boosts, and your focus is on combat, so maybe bigger (at least for Stunball) is prudent.

I know this is a starting character, but he has relatively low survivability right now. He lacks the Quickness/Body to suck up the damage, the speed to shoot first, and the stealth to dodge fire. You need to choose at least one of those and bump it up.

[Pendaric]

Minor thing but hermetics cannot teach shamans and vise versa

[Glyph]

Okay, I dug out my SR3 book to see how Priority would compare to your current build, keeping it similar to what you have. A: Magic, B: Attributes - 27 points (so +1 to your current Attributes), C: Skills - 34 (the biggest difference, compared to the 14-16 points you have now), D: Resources - 20,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (if you swapped this priority out with skills, you would still have 30 points in skills, still a 14-16 point increase over what you have now, and you would have 90,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ), E: Human. Also, if you swapped out C and E to be an elf, even 27 points of skills would be more than the current amount. Bottom line? Priority gives you a lot more.

[Sandoval Smith]

Yeah, I realized that when I sat down and listed out each of the different priority builds, and came to pretty much the same conclusion, and that I could come out with much better attributes and skills even with using a priority for Elf. Didn't notice that I left tradition out - this one's a cat shaman, which is why I the illusion spells in the initial list.

I'm getting back into the groove now. Ditched the knife skill as well as bumping skill points in general, but I just can't build a runner who isn't proficient with at least one firearm. Better spell casting, and conjuring, along with etiquette and athletics for getting into and out of sticky situations, along with fixing some of the previous attribute deficiencies.

In regard to the hermetic contact, that was a a choice made for flavor, like with the cooking stuff tucked into knowledge skills. I've never been all that good at making a mechanically lean and mean PC, but you can tell what they do when they're not running.

[fistandantilus4....]

Wow, there's a name I haven't seen in a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tiralee]

-Yeah, it's been quite a while hasn't it Sandoval?

God, where to begin...this is rough as I'm past my bedtime.

If using points, how many?
Would STRONGLY suggest priority and if your GM allows it, a few edges/flaws (Balance them, but Aptitude: Sorcery or Conjuring would be a no-brainer.)
Also: Good-looking & knows it, good reputation 2.

Stats: Ulgh. Play a pinkskin elf if the human option is not great for you.
Charisma and Will to 6, possibly Int as well.
Conjuring & Sorcery to 6.
Lose the knives.
Increase the pistol to your Quickness.

As a Shammy, your totem is..? (That makes the optimising for extra dice/summoning aspects/spell bonuses hard to calculate before play if unknown.)
If you're hard-up for initial spell points, Improved invis can be at force 1 juuust fine.
...where are your exclusive reusable drain fetishes? Drain level -1 is nothing to be sneezed at and they're cheap.


Spells are your own way of making your own mark at play, but chaotic world is pwned by stunball for cheap giggles.
Improved init +3 (level 1) when you've got the moola for a spell foci of sustained fun.

-Tir.

[Tiralee]

Fired up NSRCG: The no-frills option.
Priority build

Magic (Full shammy)
Attributes (27)
Race (Elf)
Resources (20K)
Skills: (27)

Basically, build starts off poor, but with enough useful skills/materials to be survivable, especially with the 8 cha dice you'll be using for drain as you "politely Request" all those various spirits to do your crap for you. (Toss in good Ettique and Negotion skills and you'll be "Swims-with-sharks" in no time.)

Or:
Magic (Full Shammy)
Attributes (27) - you're not going to go hand-to hand with Lord Torgo, but you can use your smarts instead.
Resources 90K
Skills: 30.
Race: Human.

Build starts with a good statblock, decent skill set and enough cash to have a decent set of wheels and a lot of backup toys...or another spellpoint (if buying at character-gen) and some cheaper toys.

Have at it!
-Tir