Magical Girl Design, Not sure how to handle this Options

[Sahandrian]

My random suggestion for Shadowrun anime... Spriggan. Sure, you get the weird biblical references and the ancient-artifact-of-unimaginable-power storyline, but you also get a cyberzombie, a speedsam, monowire, and a pair of adepts. And I don't mean they do stuff kinda-almost-like adepts, I mean I could write these two out using the SR3 core rules and nothing else and have them down perfectly. Well, until Ominae gets the weird armored suit, at least. That might need CC.

[Siege]

Spriggan...erk.

I don't know why I don't like it, but...erk.

-Siege

[simonw2000]

[Moonstone Spider]

Tuxedo Troll! Great Idea!

In other news I've shown the First Magical Girl design in other places and gotten two distince replies that confused me:

Reply 1: You are munchkin! You took that Phobia Flaw as free points because it will never come up in a game!

Reply 2: Your character is worthless! You need more combat skills!

Now this has me quite confused. How can I be both munchkin and have a pimped character?

[Glyph]

I think you mean "gimped". Actually, it's quite easy to do both. You can't have a character who is min-maxed and gimped, but you can have a character who is munchkin and gimped.

My definitions, since definitions of those two terms tend to vary:
Min-maxed: A character built to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. Not always combat-oriented, either. For example, my min-maxed healer sorcerer took biotech/first aid: 5/7, the knowledge skill of medicine: 6, microscopic vision in his cybereyes, the Biotech Aptitude Edge, and a Savior Advanced Medkit, to give him 7 primary dice to roll, 12 complementary skill dice to roll, and a total of -4 to his Target Numbers. That's the max part. The min part was starting out as an initiate so he wouldn't take physical Drain on his Force: 6 spells.

The confusion comes when people make these kind of characters in a campaign where everyone else is making weaker or "beginning" characters, and the min-maxed character dominates the campaign. At that point, the character is often accused of being "munchkin".

Munchkin: Abusing, or even breaking, the rules to gain an advantage. Most often used by immature players, so characters built this way often have severe disadvantages such as no social skills or stealth whatsoever or an extremely conspicuous appearance. An example of munchkin behavior would be taking Jack Itch and Simsense Vertigo for an Eagle shaman who will never use that technology, or taking Incompetence in three 1-point skills that you never plan to use in order to get a net 3 extra build points.


So you can use a technique that is "munchkin" and still wind up with a useless character. I kind of agree that the phobia you picked is kind of cheesy if it's not a joke but something you actually expect to get points for taking. It was funny to read, but not something that's a real Flaw. I don't think your character is gimped at all, though. What do you need more combat skills for? You're an awakened character! You have spells and spirits!

[simonw2000]

Do wujen need libraries to conjure?

[Glyph]

The book says that they use libraries and circles rather than lodges, but it also says that they summon spirits of the elements and spirits of man "in the same manner as shamans summon nature spirits", so that implies that they summon spirits on the fly, without needing any books or materials at hand.

[A Clockwork Lime]

Right. The summoning libraries and circles are basically only needed whenever a shaman would need their shamanic lodge, such as for creating an ally spirit. They're not used in day-to-day summoning.