[5th Ed] Troll MysAd Bear medic, Looking for build comments please. Options

[Ogrebear]

Character background is that Dominic was an up and coming son of Boston based AAA corp, Humanis leaning Doctor parents. After an inexplicable accident (one hell of a party) at Medical university lead to Dominic expressing as a Troll, he was cut off with only a trust fund, a house in Renton, and a corp secretary as a contact to his old life. That was some years ago though, and Dominic has adjusted to being a Troll now. He has found work at one of the remaining health facilities in Redmond. He started running to help out the Crew at Crusher 495 in their conflicts with organised crime.

Dominic is not exactly Mr Personality- I put that down to his 'bedside manner' and not being able to squeeze any more out of the points.

Dominic Burns

METATYPE: TROLL
B 5, A 5, R 3, S 5, W 5, L 4, I 2, C 1, ESS 6, EDG 1, M 6

Condition Monitor (P/S): 11 / 11
Armour: 12
Limits: Physical 6, Mental 5, Social 5
Physical Initiative: 5+1D6

Active Skills: Assensing 1, Biotech Group 1, Computer 2, Conjuring Group 1, Counterspelling (Combat Spells +2) 5, Etiquette (Street +2) 3, Perception 6, Pilot Ground Craft 2, Pistols (Semi-Automatics +2) 4 (6), Sneaking (Urban +2) 2, Spellcasting (Health Spells +2) 5, Swimming 1, Unarmed Combat 2

Knowledge Skills: Beer & other alcahols 1, City of Seatlle 2, Parazoology 1, Pharmaceuticals 1, Police & Security Proceedures 1, Street Gangs 2
Languages: English N, Or'Zet 3, Salish 1

Metatype Abilities: Armor (+1), Enhanced Senses: Thermographic Vision

Qualities: Big Regret (family abandonment), Day Job (2,500¥/month, 20 hrs/week), Hermetic Mystic Adept, Mentor Spirit: Magician Powers: Bear, Magician Powers, Phobia, Uncommon (Mild): Small Spaces, Quick Healer, SINner (National SIN): UCAS, Trust Fund (Middle & 500¥/month)

Spells: Detect Life, Heal, Ignite, Increase Reflexes, Levitate, Physical Mask, Resist Pain, Shapechange, Stabilize, Sterilize

Adept Powers: Astral Perception, Attribute Boost (2): Agility (8dicepool), Combat Sense (1), Improved Ability (2): Pistols, Mystic Armor (2)

Gear:
Certified Credstick, Standard x2
Glasses (1) w/ Image Link
Lined Coat w/ Medkit (2)
Slab
Sony Emperor Commlink
Trodes
Zathras w/ Fake SIN (2), (2 months) Low Lifestyle

Weapons:
Browning Ultra-Power [Heavy Pistol, Acc 6, DV 8P, AP -1, SA, 10 ©] w/ Gecko Grip, Laser Sight, (100x) Regular Ammo, Sling

Contacts:
Bartender (Connection 1, Loyalty 2)
Corporate Administrator (Connection 2, Loyalty 3)
Fixer (Connection 2, Loyalty 3)

Starting ¥: 1,490 + (4D6 × 100)¥

This is not a Missions or Prime character.
Comments welcome please!

[Neraph]

Ok, we get the point - you want someone to critique your build. Stop posting it and we'll get to it.

[Neraph]

Okay so, after reading through it this is what I discovered:

1) Med school, high life, trust fund.... and Street etiquette? That seems very out of place. Maybe include how long you've been running the shadows in the backstory.

2) Backstory - expressing as a troll because of a "wild party".... if you're going to goblinize, it happens at puberty, not because of booze and hookers.

3) What's your Adept/Magician split? On that note, instead of Mystic Armor you'd probably be better served with Combat Sense. Avoiding being hit is always superior to soaking damage.

4) Since you did nothing with your physical stats, which is the entire reason of being a troll in the first place, perhaps your character concept would still be served as an ork? You'd save a handful of points that you could spend back into more skills or gear. I hate not putting at least one point into each stat. Your troll there is the equivalent of an "anorexic, nerd-gamer" version of a troll.

5) In general, it's better to get all your skills specialized rather than have a handful of skills at moderate ratings. For example, if you drop your Perception one point you can spec it for Hearing and then spec Unarmed Combat for Defense or something. Likewise, you can drop Pilot Groundcraft one, spec it for Wheeled, then spec like Assensing for something.

[Glyph]

Not unplayable by any means, but the character really doesn't fit the concept - the Biotech skill group at rating: 1 is not a doctor, or even an intern. It is about the level of what a kid might have picked up from two doctor parents, rather than someone studying medicine at a university. Since being a real doctor would require massive sacrifices in other areas, I would recommend tweaking the background. Maybe he was studying Magic, not medicine, at university, and maybe his job could be helping out with this and that at some unlicensed medical facility on the outskirts of the Barrens.

Other than that, the only glaring problem I see is etiquette and perception, both necessary skills to be sure, but 10 points is being spent here for weak dice pools, since Charisma of 1 and Intuition of 2 sabotage things. And meanwhile, you have the conjuring skill group at the all-but-useless rating of 1. I would change the conjuring group to the influence group, drop the etiquette and lower perception to 3, and get summoning: 6 with a specialization in a specific spirit type. Calling up spirits is a big part of a mage's arsenal, and spirits can be very effective at a lot of tasks.

One minor tweak I would recommend would be to lower Agility by one and raise Logic by one. Not normally something I would recommend, but Logic is one of your Drain stats, and is also core to your budding medic concept.

Most of your spell list looks good, but Ignite is a poorly-described, not-very-effective spell for combat. Flamethrower is a much better spell for setting things (and people) on fire.

[Neraph]

Also, Physical Mask isn't going to do too terribly much with your Troll canvas to paint on.

[Ryu]

You did:
A Magic
B Troll(0)
C Skills (28/2)
D Attributes 14
E Ressources (6k¥)

It got you high magic potential, solid body and strength, and a good Pistols pool. On the downside you have bad Intuition/Charisma, no Edge, and no relevant damage resistance. The mental abilities do not fit your background.

1. Exchange B and D->Human(3), increase mental stats and REA at the cost of Bod/Str (neither does much here), have an Edge of 5.
1a. Lowering Magic to B and raising attributes to A can be worth it. Magic 6/Edge 3 is still possible, and you loose two skill ranks and three spells for four attribute points. Possible starting point: Attributes 24 (Bod 3 Agi 4 Rea 5 Str 3 Cha 3 Int 4 Log 5 Wil 5 Mag 6 Edg 3)

2. Loose the Pistol. You spend way to much on Agility and the skill and the powers to have a backup option for your magic. Your first goal should be higher Rea/Int for Initiative and defense.

3. Focus your skillpoints. You can really only have relevant pools in very few skills at chargen. It just happens to be a bit more effective in the long term, too.

Being a troll automatically makes you sink a ton of your virtual BPs into Bod and Str, and a starting character has to make good use of those. Those are not worth as much as the other attributes unless you need them for something specific. Int, Cha, Agi are all super-utility attributes, then you have Rea for combat and Log for a bunch of useful skills. If you spend 8 attributes on increasing Bod/Str, something else is going to suffer. So only play a Troll for mental abilites like magic/medicine/tech if you really really want to.

[Sengir]

Damn, I saw the two empty threads but not the one with replies...

Does you team have a rigger or joint vehicle, or are you planning to take the bus? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)