spell sam Options

[Edward]

Is it workable to make a direct combat full magician

Use spells & weapon focus to increase your combat ability and spirits to aid you and sustaining foci to keep it all running.

Can it work? can you give me any advice on what I would need to take.

Edward

[Herald of Verjig...]

You will have one key problem at chargen, you won't have any expendable attributes. This means that you have to try to max out attribute points, pay for full mage, and get enough cred to buy some of what you will need to be effective. You won't have much in the way of backup skills after that.

A weapon focus is extremely expensive to start with, so just go with a melee skill and either try to swipe one on a run or enchant one, or have one enchanted for you specifically.

Sustaining foci are your friends until you use 13 force of them at once. As a full mage, it is impossible for you to do that unless you buy at least one extra spell point and only take sustained spells. Armor, More Enhanced Aim (self only, increased range), and I think deflection would be good choices for sustained spells. You may also want to pass off some variety of Increased Reflexes +5 so you can flinch as fast as the street sam.

Choice of tradition is mostly personal preference. Hermetic get the longest potential use out of each conjuring, letting you rest before the work needs to be done. Shamen get a nice list of powers and usually at least two spirit types available. Wujen can astral quest to help learn health spells and have the strongest direct combat spirits if you can conjure them. Voodoun lets you directly improve your combat ability at the subtle cost of having no control whatsoever over your actions.

[Glyph]

Making a full mage who is a close combat specialist is doable, of course, but very non-optimal. Like Herald said, you will be spread pretty thin.

One idea - make him an ork or troll with high physical Attributes, a shaman (so you don't have to take high Resources), some defensive spells like Combat Sense, Deflect, or Invisibility, and some touch spells used in conjunction with a high unarmed combat skill. When you initiate, get channeling, then get invoking for your next one (so that you can channel great form spirits).

[Zenmaxer]

Wujen for combat mages. there is NOTHING like setting someone on fire then conjuring a salamander to roast their team-mates using their burning body as the domain. Better, make him a phys-mage wujen, as the game master will prolly kill you before you can initiate anyway.

[Necro Tech]

I did it with a Houngan. Take all the spells for personal protection, speed and dealing damage, get yourself a good edged weapon and then let a decent force Loa ride you and your stats can be 9-12. Very unsubtle but when you absolutely have to kill every last stormtrooper in the room.......

[Brazila]

Yeah A full mage would be far to thin. I would go Sorc. Just a couple Sust. Foci holding combat sense, armor, and inc Rflx can make you a force to be reconned with.

[Eyeless Blond]

Actually if you could initiate at chargen and take Invoking and Channeling a full mage would probably be your best bet.

[Jarvis]

Done it. Take a troll, drop Increased Reflexes 3 into a sustaining focus and pick up a reach 2 weapon. keep your TN at 3 with the reach, and try to keep their's at about 5. Mages generally have a large combat pool anyway, take advantage of it.