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Banaticus
If I'd like to post a character build for you all to look at and tell me, "No, no, what you really should do is to put all of your points into Firearms and Explosive Weaponry..." Is this the place to put it?

Edit: I was hoping that I could edit the first post to change the title of the thread, but apparently I can't do that.
imperialus
Go for it. Lots of other people have
ElFenrir
Yeah, and don't take it to heart if we pick something apart. biggrin.gif We are doing it to help, hence, character critiques.
Banaticus
Edit: I highly suggest that you go look at the following spreadsheet, which was in the original post, as it contains the latest version of this character. I'm leaving what I originally typed in just so you all can see how much this forum has helped, but please look at the spreadsheet link below which actually reflects his current state. I now return you to the original post.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
CODE
Cat Shaman,  398 BP spent, 15k¥ unspent

Magician          15
Astral Chameleon   5
Combat Paralysis -20
SINner (Standard) -5

180 BP on attributes
Body      2
Agility   4
Reaction  3
Strength  2
Charisma  4
Intuition 3
Logic     3
Willpower 5

20 BP spent on Edge, 65 on Magic
Edge 3
Magic 6


Athletics (Group) 1  10 BP
Conjuring (Group) 4  40 BP
Sorcery (Group)   4  40 BP
Influence (Group) 1  10 BP
Pistols           1    4 BP

Nuyen ¥ 50000 10 BP

24 BP spent on 8 spells
Chaos (Realistic, Multi)
Clairvoyance (Passive, Directional)
Heal
Improved Invisibility (Realistic, Single)
Mana Barrier (Environ.)
Powerball (Direct)
Shapechange (Physical)
Stealth (Realistic, Single)

BK:Athletics           2
BK:Etiquette           3
BK:Stealth             3
BK:Wilderness Survival 1
IN:Cooking             5
IN:Weightlifting       1
SW:Magic               3

35000 ¥ on foci
Sustaining Focus 1
Power Focus 1


So, tell me, what's good? What should I spend that unspent 15k¥ on, what sort of ordinary gear for a guy with a SIN would be good?
Magus
Pray to your gods you do not get shot. with a body of 2 you are going to be hurting severely, especially with no dodge skill. Or any perception to get a chance to see the shooter first.
Personally at chargen, I do not take the Sorcery group or Conjuring Group as I will not use Ritual Sorcery. I typically only need Counterspelling and SpellCasting. As for Conjuring, I just take the summoning skill. Binding is too expensive at Chargen and Banishing is sucide unless you have a high skill.
Banaticus
With invisibility and stealth, I'm hoping that he never gets shot. Is there a flying spell?

Binding doesn't seem too bad -- the typical drain value for a spirit is 4/3 its Force, so a Force 2 and Force 3 spirit will likely have a DV of 3 and 4, respectively. Although, the spirits could give a max DV of 8 and 12, which is somewhat scary albeit very unlikely. Banishing, though, a good spirit summoned by another mage would likely be giving at least 6 drain if not more. I'd like to keep it, though, as it's cheaper than buying it from scratch later on.

I was looking at Ritual Sorcery and I don't see why a loner would have anything in it at all, so it's gone which does let me raise Sorcery and Counterspelling up one each. Apparently I can't even use it with a teammate unless a teammate is also a Cat Shaman, which is pretty unlikely.

I haven't looked at how a person resists drain and how that affects a person, I've mostly just looked at how to avoid having to deal with it in the first place. I wouldn't mind trading a point of magic for an adrenaline pump or a pain editor and maybe a smartlink or something, but that's pretty expensive and I can't afford it right now.

With another 35 points from somewhere, I could drop body and strength to 1, make him a troll, add exceptional attribute: charisma and erase Astral Chameleon. wink.gif
imperialus
agreed on all counts. A body of 2 also means you'll never wear armour with a rating better than 4 so you are either wearing a leather jacket or armoured clothing so it just become a downward spiral. Body of 3 I'd say is a bare minimum if you want your character to survive, it at least lets you wear an armoured vest. The Combat Paralysis could prove praticularly deadly for you since you won't have time to react and get to cover if lead starts flying and you sure as heck can't survive much lead poisoning. My mage has a body of 3 and there are times I wish I had set it higher. Of course you have some stealth spells available so that should help, my own character is focused primarally on influance/mind affecting mojo.

I also agree on not bothing with the skill groups. I'm playing a mage now and kicking myself for not using those BP's elsewhere. Unless you are planning on playing a dedicated summoner I'd say other than simple summoning and ignore binding and banishing. Last session I tried to banish a water elemental... I only managed to piss it off, and rapidly discovered I wasn't much good at astral combat.

Powergaming a bit here but I'd spend the full 200 BP's that you are premited to on attributes. Attributes are much more expensive to raise than skills so in the long run it pays to get them as high as possible at chargen. Also I'd lower your Magic from 6 to 5 to pick up on an extra 25 BP's. It very rarely makes sense to max attributes anymore since those 25 points mean 1 more die for a magic tests but you could raise 6 skills by 1 die each for the same price. With those points you could get dodge, perhaps a social skill or two and anything else that piques your intrest. I know this sounds like I'm contradicting myself but belive me it's worth it to have average to above average attributes across the board. It's pretty tough to find a dump stat in SR but it's too expensive to max things out either.

Edit: Also with points in KN: weightlifting I doubt very much he's gonna be quite so underdeveloped as to have a Body and Str of 2. I expect that anyone who takes the time to learn how to lift weights is going to be in better shape than that. A body 2 str 2 character strikes me as the couch potato type possibly bordering on the obese or a relatively severe asthmatic.

Edit2: Also if you are a human you should have 4 edge not 3. Humans get a beanie to make up for the lack of... anything else.
Banaticus
Shapechange only allows a person to change into an animal 2 body points away. What's the body rating like for a cat?
imperialus
Rulebook doesn't say. Double check with your DM, but to be alive it has to be at least 1 so if you had a body of 3 you'd still be golden.

Body of 4 though would let you shapechange into a great cat (body 6) devil.gif

Edit: Also if you want you could take the (critter) Form spell for cat, that would let you bypass the 2 body point limit.
Banaticus
Is that one of those spells from Street Magic?

If I'm not going to be summoning/binding/banishing spirits anyway, I might as well reduce my Conjuration (group) skill, say to 1. Which (after I'd crossed the Powerball spell off my list) gave me enough points to change to troll, which raises body and strength to 5, which also lets me shapechange into a great cat.

Imagine a big Mountain Lion (Unarmed Combat 4, DV 5) attacking someone, but doing so while invisible and silent.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag

Now, my Charisma is currently maxed out at 4. Should I drop Astral Chameleon and take Exceptional Attribute: Charisma? (It only costs 5 points to take that edge, as it's already an extra 15 points to max out the Cha skill and with that edge, the skill wouldn't be maxed out anymore.) Would it be better to have my astral signature slightly easier to trace or to have the option of someday buying up Cha to resist drain a little more easily than I currently do?
Catharz Godfoot
QUOTE
Powergaming a bit here but I'd spend the full 200 BP's that you are premited to on attributes.  Attributes are much more expensive to raise than skills so in the long run it pays to get them as high as possible at chargen.


Here is some math thanks to Frank:
Attribute 1-5: 95% (40 BP/42 Karma)
Attribute 5-6: 139% (25 BP/18 Karma)
Attribute 1-6: 108% (65 BP/60 Karma)

Skills 0-4: 73% (16 BP/22 Karma)
Skill 0-6: 55% (24 BP/44 Karma)

For the math retarded, the lower the percentage, the worse it is to use Karma.

So, in the long run, it pays to start with all your skills maxed and your stats either at 5 or as low as survival permits. It makes you objectively worse at lower levels though.

QUOTE
  Also I'd lower your Magic from 6 to 5 to pick up on an extra 25 BP's.  It very rarely makes sense to max attributes anymore since those 25 points mean 1 more die for a magic tests but you could raise 6 skills by 1 die each for the same price.  With those points you could get dodge, perhaps a social skill or two and anything else that piques your intrest.


Or better yet, raise two skill by 3. wink.gif
imperialus
QUOTE (Banaticus)
Is that one of those spells from Street Magic?

nope it's from the BBB, it's a variation of Shapechange. Just like how Manaball is a variation of Manabolt. It's listed under the same entry as Shapechange. Basically it boils down to a spell that causes slightly less drain (F/2)+1 rather than (F/2)+2 but you have to pick a single animal, Tiger, Lion, Bear (oh my) ect. rather than having a variety but being limited by body.
SCARed
QUOTE (Banaticus)
Is there a flying spell?

as for the flyiing spell: ever thought of levitation? maybe not the right thing for supersonic speeds, but with decent hits not too lame either.
Glyph
From a min-maxing perspective, troll is not the optimal race for this character. Sure, you get a nice Body and Strength, but what will you really use that Strength for?

Personally, I think making him an ork is much better, numbers-wise. Body drops to 4 and Strength drops to 3. The Strength is fine - 3 is plenty for a mage. You can raise the Body back to 5 with 10 points, since the Charisma only costs 30 now (5 is the ork racial maximum). And you have 25 points now (20 because orks only cost 20, not 40, and 5 savings from Attributes).

Other changes I would suggest: lose a point of Agility, almost useless to you as a stat presently, and put it in Reaction instead. Since you are set on getting the Conjuring skill group, use 20 of the 25 points saved from above to raise it to a respectable 3. Drop the almost useless pistols skill. Instead, get a specialization for your Spellcasting and Counterspelling skills. For the last 5 points, use 3 to get a combat spell, such as manabolt or stunbolt (much more effective than a pistols skill of 1), then spend the remaining 2 points to bond those two foci (especially the power focus, which is much more expensive to bond after play begins).

Finally, I would either add another 10 points of negative qualities (something like Moderate Allergy to Silver), or make do with a still-decent 4 Body (or drop Agility to 2), and get some contacts. They are a must-have. I would suggest a 4 connection/2 loyalty fixer and a 2 connection/2 loyalty talismonger, since those are the two most important contacts for a starting mage.
Banaticus
I just looked at levitate for the first time. If you use a Force 6 Levitate spell to pull something out of someone else's hands, you're only rolling against four drain, but you get 12 dice to roll against his Str+Bod. Which means that, except for very big trolls and the like, even magicians that aren't very powerful can likely always rip something from another person's hands and only take a single box of stun, probably.
Trigger
QUOTE (Banaticus)
I just looked at levitate for the first time. If you use a Force 6 Levitate spell to pull something out of someone else's hands, you're only rolling against four drain, but you get 12 dice to roll against his Str+Bod. Which means that, except for very big trolls and the like, even magicians that aren't very powerful can likely always rip something from another person's hands and only take a single box of stun, probably.

Well, if the magician isn't very powerful, he is probably taking a box of physical then, since a not too powerful magician would have a magic rating of less than 6, probably more like 4.
Banaticus
Thanks, Glyph. I didn't realize that I needed to bond the foci.

I went with a decent strength and good agility to go along with the athletics skill, as I thought a cat shaman should be ok at sports and pretty good at gymnastics.

I realized that this character cannot assense anyone. That needs to change. Unfortunately, that takes 20 points.

Cat Shamans cannot "incapacitate" people until they themselves have been hurt. I belive "incapacitate" means "knock out or kill". So stunball and knockout won't be of much use as a preventative measure (knock them unconscious before they can get you). That's why I started looking into Invisibility and Stealth to begin with. I guess I could pick up Stunball for emergencies.

I also added contacts in, although I had to reduce Agility to do it. Contacts are written in the format Connections/Loyalty and their cost is Connection+Loyalty, right?

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
Trigger
Ok, firstly, you don't need assensing at 5, maybe 3, but not 5.

I would also take your magic ating down to five and your sorcery and conjuring to four each.

That is 41 BP right there for you to use elsewhere.

I would take conjuring up to 2, or make it Summoning 3 & Banishing 2...

I would also raise influence to 2, maybe athletics as well, gymnastics from there is a good replacemtn for dodge. Or I would use that ten BP to get Dodge at 2 plus a ranged defense specialization for when you need to go full defensive.

Stunbolt is a better spell for a cat shaman, since your restriction prevents you from incapacitating an opponent unless they harm you....and stunball is a area spell..so are you going to wait for them all to try and hurt you? Also stunbolt has less drain.

I would drop you talismonger to a 2/2, and take thse 2 BP along with the 1 from the 41 to buy another spell..levitate maybe.

Just my thoughts.
toturi
Assensing is one of the few skills that will give you something tangible at 5 hits. But you can only have 2 skills at 5. You have to decide on which 2. Personally I'd max spellcasting and counterspelling.

May I know which spell are you sustaining? A Force 1 sustaining focus can only sustain a Force 1 spell.
Banaticus
Thanks, I'll lower Assensing by 1 and raise Spellcasting by 1 -- there's no extra cost for maxing out a skill like there is with an attribute (although I believe I can only have one at 6)?

I thought I'd sustain Shapechange. That would allow me to cast Invisibility or whatever on myself with no penalty from sustaining the spell. And there's no benefit, from what I can see, for ever casting Shapechange at a Force higher than 1. It can only be cast on voluntary subjects, so it's not as though anyone would ever be trying to actively Counterspell it when I'm casting it.

Or perhaps Clairvoyance -- from previous discussions here, it appears that the spell can be used to look through walls. I target myself, stand next to the wall, then "view events" from a point only a meter away from myself, but on the other side of the wall. If that's not how it works, perhaps I should go with Clairaudience in its place, so that I can eavesdrop on other people more easily. In either case, there doesn't seem to be a benefit from casting the spell at a higher Force.

Someday I might get the Armor spell or the Levitate spell (I'm think of the levitate spell in place of the mana barrier spell). The Armor spell would definitely require a higher focus to sustain, so it's on the list for far away in the future. The Levitate spell could be sustained at Focus 1, as long as I was just moving myself. Trying to sustain it at high enough levels to yank things out of people's hands would require a far more substantial Focus so that's also on the list for far in the future. But the Force 1 version of Levitate would let me fly. Actually, I just looked it up again and it appears that I can lift whatever I want with Levitate at Force 1, as it's just dependant on how many hits I can make with Sorcery + Magic (also determines speed of movement).

I can only start with eight spells, so taking some other spell would require removing a spell that's already on the list. So far, I have:
  • Spell that gives a -1 to all their tests for each net hit I have
  • See through walls
  • Heal
  • Go invisible
  • Shapechange
  • Stealth
  • Stunball
  • When big bad evil astral things come, I throw up a barrier of some sort and run! Or I throw up a barrier around myself and hope that they go away.
ElFenrir
Well, seems to be shaping up! Im a huge fan of the ork mage...well, orks in general are an awesome race....can be human looking, great advantages for their minor disadvantages, they are common, only drawback is dropping dead of old age at 40 wink.gif


But your skills seem solid...dropped Conjuring a bit i see but you can always up that later, i see you are focusing on Spellcasting.

A weapon skill might be nice...i might have missed that but im a fan of having a backup pistol or something incase drain stacks up too much, and with low Conjuring its hard to have a spirit back you up.

Athletics Group takes away need to have Dodge.

As for skill question, yeah, either 1 at 6 and the rest at 4 or less, or 2 at 5 and the rest 4 or less.

Nice concept too. This new version i think works the best out of all of them ive seen. Armor spell is nice, but yes, those sustained spells i find work best through foci.

toturi
You can only have 1 skill at 6 or 2 skills at 5. Not 1 skill at 6 AND 2 skills at 5.

Remember your number of hits is limited by the spell's Force. And so a Force 1 spell can only have 1 hits which limits you to 200kg.
Ryu
I think magic 6 has to go. Thats for minmaxing builds only, and those are not effective in this case. Now you are a somewhat weaker mage, but have 25 points to spend.

You also seem to lack the mentor quality, therefore you are a shaman without the cat part.
Just Pete
Did I miss something somewhere? You mention that this is a cat shaman a few times, but I don't see where you took the 'Mentor Spirit' quality.
Banaticus
WTF, mate? I can't even stunball someone until I've been shot and I still have to pay for a cat mentor spirit?
/emote grumbling all the way to the spreadsheet to add that in
Ok, I added that in, but I had to delete Astral Chameleon to do it.

ElfFenrir, yes, you missed the earlier comments on that. Plus even the most basic pistol skill would cost 4 BP.

I have one skill at 6, one at 5, one at 4 and the rest are skill groups at 1.

As to the weight, he's less than half that limit now that he's not a troll and now that I've swapped out mana barrier for levitate. See the other thread I'm starting on Levitate.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
imperialus
QUOTE (Banaticus @ Jan 5 2007, 05:57 PM)
I have one skill at 6, one at 5, one at 4 and the rest are skill groups at 1.

needs to be one skill at 6 the rest at 4 or less, OR two skills at 5, no skills at 6, the rest at 4 or less.
Banaticus
That's good, by subtracting one point from a contact, that gives me Astral Chameleon back.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
ElFenrir
QUOTE
WTF, mate? I can't even stunball someone until I've been shot and I still have to pay for a cat mentor spirit?



You know, i did the same thing convering my Wolf shaman. I mean, its only 5 BP, but having to purchase my mentor spirit sort of had me grumbling for awhile. For 3 editions it worked fine without it(the benefits you got had hinderances too, and a GM could nix your powers quick if you didnt roleplay your shaman, and were supposed to do so), so i didnt understand why they forced you to BUY your mentor spirit. I mean, its houseruled easily enough but i can understand the grumbling. smile.gif


As for the Magic 6 vs. Magic 5...I might be on the boat that says Magic 5 might be better. I find Magic 6 works well with Adepts, but normal mages can get away with their magic 5 til their first initation, and/or its easy enough to raise with karma later. 25 BPs at the start are alot...youd be surprised how far it goes. Thats a whole new skill at 4 with leftover, with extra spells if you havnt reached the limit, or several lower skills, or alot of extra resources, or a little of everything. Heck, its even enough for another skill group at 2 with 5 BPs to kick around in another skill or a couple specializations, or resources. In SR4, you have to REALLY want that 6.

I went thru the same thing with magical characters for awhile. I learned a Force 5 Stunball is still rough, and a Force 5 Levitate or Force 5 Barrier is still very effective. Overcasting is always an option in a pinch, but be careful with it.
imperialus
looks pretty good. I'm sure there is more tweaking that could be done but he's definatly playable as is. Only thing i might still suggest is trying to come up with at least 1 skill point to pop into Dodge. At least then you don't suffer a defaulting penalty if you need to dive for cover.
Kyoto Kid
...while I do not normally play spellcasters, there is something that a I have seen a lot of mages in my group do which increases their survivability. Consider the following spells on Sustaining Foci:

Increase Body.
Increase Reflexes.

Note: for the Increase Reflexes spell, the focus must be one rating level higher than the benefit you gain since there is a threshold of 1 (eg. To gain an additional +2 IPs you need a Force 3 Focus).

Yes, it is costly, but it keeps your character from becoming dead meat when the sammy with 3 IPs unloads on you.

Unless you are also a melee character (with a Weapon Focus) Gun skill is almost redundant since you have already ranged direct combat spells that have a greater effect since they bypass armour.

Stunball is a better choice over Powerball for three reasons:
1 Stunball has a much lower drain
2. Stun damage is harder to heal up (plus you so not leave a body count tally behind).
3. Stunball/Bolt is resisted with Willpower while Powerball is resisted with Body (consider that when the character goes up aginst a Troll Sammy)

If you still want to affect inanimate objects, I would take the single target version Powerbolt.

Magus and Imperialus are right about Skill Groups. The only one of the two I can see maybe keeping is Conjuring since it also includes Banishing and Binding.

Keep in mind, depending on spells like invisibility for your survival isn't foolproof. All it takes is another mage, a Spirit, or an adept with the Astral Perception power to blow your cover. There are also mundane countermeasures against magical intrusion as well like FAB, Ultrasound, mist emitters (with UV tagging), and dye loaded splash grenades (which I have used).

Agreed with Ryu, I would not take your Magic Attribute at 6 right away. This is where the Karma expenditure is less then the BP cost. You do not need to Initiate to raise it to 6 after the character enters play so it only costs you 18 Karma instead of 25 BPs.

I personally like the Knowledge skills Weightlifting and Athletics , this says to me the character will exercise to increase their Strength and Body after he enters play and may even learn Gymnastics, or Climbing.

One word about taking Combat paralysis, unless it is an integral part of the character story, Don't (unless you want your character to have a very short career when the first firefight breaks out). Not only does it cause you to lose half of your initiative dice, it also reduces your Reaction Dice pool by -3 for surprise tests (with a reaction of 3 that is very, very bad). I would rather take the Unlucky quality or an Allergy at 10 and Simsense Vertigo.
Thanee
Some things that come to mind (have only skimmed the other posts, so might be some doubles in here):

Mentor Spirit (Cat) is missing.
Magic 6 is too expensive, get Magic 5. (My shaman has Magic 4 and is doing fine!)
Spend part of the points to up your Power Focus to 2 (6 BP), then you got pretty much the same, effectively for 19 BP less.
Also up your Sustaining Focus to 3, Force 1 is not good for much.
I'd switch Body and Logic, probably. Even Body 3 is not much (also restricts your armor, so it's double pain); normally you want Body 4 at least for the survivability.
Get fetishes for some of your spells, to help with the Drain. Keep a decent set of spells without fetish in case you lose your fetishes, though.
The skill groups for Conjuring and Sorcery eat up too many points initially.
What you really need is Spellcasting, Counterspelling, and Summoning. Maybe Binding.
Assensing (not just 1) and Perception are also important to have, IMHO.
You probably want Infiltration 1 as well, to go with the theme. Cats are stealthy.

Bye
Thanee
Banaticus
You can view the latest character sheet at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
Glyph
Thanee may have been looking at one of the older versions, but he was right about the power focus. I'll add my voice to the chorus saying that your Magic should be 5 - it will be cheaper to get it to 6 with Karma, later. In the mean time, improve the power focus from 1 to 2 for those 6 points (5 for the cost, 1 for the binding).

That leaves 19 points to spend, so I would drop Assensing to 3 (which is still plenty), making it 23 points. 20 go to improve the Conjuring skill group from 1 to 3, and 3 go to get another spell.
Banaticus
Improving the power focus from 1 to 2 requires an additional BP for bonding, as bonding is equal to the force of the foci, with the stipulation that you can't have more active foci than you have magic. So, every Force of the Power Foci costs 5 BP. (1 Force = 5 BP, 2 Force = 10 BP, etc.)

Force = X
nuyen.gif cost = 20,000 * X
BP cost = (nuyen.gif cost)/5000 + X

I dropped the Magic skill by 1, raised Athletics (group) and Conjuring (group) each by 1, raised the Power Foci by 1 and bought an additional Sustaining Foci at 1, then rebought that point that I removed from the Talismonger during the last edit.

For the spells that I'll be sustaining, Force 1 is plenty. There is no benefit from casting or sustaining the spell at a higher Force.

I suggest that anyone else who wants to look at this character should look at the most current version of him -- you can look at him all you want by going to:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag
That address hasn't changed in this whole thread.
Thanee
What do you think you can use the Sustaining Focus 1 for?

And a Power Focus costs 25k¥ per Force IIRC, so 6 BP total (with bonding).

Instead of Conjuring 2 you are much better off with Summoning 4 and 4 points spent elsewhere (Perception!!). Binding and Banishing are pretty much completely pointless when you do not have them at a higher level and Banishing is pretty much completely pointless even then. wink.gif

Maybe you should get some single target attack spell, too. Power Bolt for example.

Bye
Thanee
Banaticus
QUOTE (Banaticus)
I thought I'd sustain Shapechange.  That would allow me to cast Invisibility or whatever on myself with no penalty from sustaining the spell.  And there's no benefit, from what I can see, for ever casting Shapechange at a Force higher than 1.  It can only be cast on voluntary subjects, so it's not as though anyone would ever be trying to actively Counterspell it when I'm casting it.

Or perhaps Clairvoyance -- from previous discussions here, it appears that the spell can be used to look through walls.  I target myself, stand next to the wall, then "view events" from a point only a meter away from myself, but on the other side of the wall.  If that's not how it works, perhaps I should go with Clairaudience in its place, so that I can eavesdrop on other people more easily.  In either case, there doesn't seem to be a benefit from casting the spell at a higher Force.

Someday I might get the Armor spell or the Levitate spell (I'm think of the levitate spell in place of the mana barrier spell).  The Armor spell would definitely require a higher focus to sustain, so it's on the list for far away in the future.  The Levitate spell could be sustained at Focus 1, as long as I was just moving myself.  Trying to sustain it at high enough levels to yank things out of people's hands would require a far more substantial Focus so that's also on the list for far in the future.  But the Force 1 version of Levitate would let me fly.  Actually, I just looked it up again and it appears that I can lift whatever I want with Levitate at Force 1, as it's just dependant on how many hits I can make with Sorcery + Magic (also determines speed of movement).

I can only start with eight spells, so taking some other spell would require removing a spell that's already on the list.  So far, I have:

  • Spell that gives a -1 to all their tests for each net hit I have
  • See through walls
  • Heal
  • Go invisible
  • Shapechange
  • Stealth
  • Stunball

With Levitate added to that list and Mana Barrier removed, that's 8 spells.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Banaticus)
You can view the latest character sheet at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pla...s_8ih7h8zuo7fag

...I would still consider ditching the Combat Paralysis, particularly since he does not have any reflex enhancement. Trust me being surprised is bad, it is worse when you only have one die to roll (rolling a "1" is automatically a critical glitch). Having only one IP and an initiative of 7 you definitely don't want to take any negatives on your Initiative Dice Pool either. You will only be rolling four dice (maybe three depending on how the roll is rounded) for your first initiative test when combat breaks out.

I too am wondering what the two Force 1 Sustaining foci are for since you do not have any Attribute increase spells.

Also with Conjuring of 1 you only have 6 dice to summon, bind, or banish a spirit. Keep in mind this is an opposed test with the spirit rolling its force in dice against the summoning/banishing mage. Raising a skill group is 5 Karma x new level after the character enters play, that is a big expenditure when you have initiation to consider. You may do better to just take the individual skill of Summoning.

Making him an Orc does help with the physical attributes but limits his Charisma max (which is important for a Shaman's drain resistance, summoning, and binding).

Mages are definitely BP sinks as well as Karma sinks. While I tend to discourage min-maxing you almost need to have the full 35 BPs in negative qualities to have a decent supporting skillset. I might also consider dropping the Astral Chameleon quality to shave some points. Yes, it's nice, but most of the mage characters I've seen have done well without it.
Grinder
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
...I would still consider ditching the Combat Paralysis, particularly since he does not have any reflex enhancement. Trust me being surprised is bad, it is worse when you only have one die to roll (rolling a "1" is automatically a critical glitch). Having only one IP and an initiative of 7 you definitely don't want to take any negatives on your Initiative Dice Pool either. You will only be rolling four dice (maybe three depending on how the roll is rounded) for your first initiative test when combat breaks out.

Well, it's supposed to be a serious drawback for a character and taking a negative quality that you can get rid of with either cyber or magic is boo-boo. wink.gif
Kyoto Kid
...Not suggesting that the character take something to counter it. I just wouldn't take it period, even if I had 2 IPs, a reaction of 6, and initiative of 10+. From my experience, the disadvantages far outweigh the BP value. Starting characters have enough of an uphill battle to fight. With this quality, a PC can even lose a surprise test to a Sec Guard or Ganger. One good shot or successful melee attack, and it could easily be back to the chargen drawing board.

Also, this works against the character in Astral surprise situations as well. Definitely not good when a spirit rolls F+(2 to 4) dice and the character only has 1. Even a watcher could possibly surprise the character (though not so much more than maybe run & tell it's summoner there's trouble).

I would definitely look at other negative qualities as I mentioned earlier.
Butterblume
I took combat paralysis wink.gif.

Not really sure if it will pan out. There are only so much flaws there that one really wants a little diversion.
Grinder
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
I would definitely look at other negative qualities as I mentioned earlier.

Then I misread your posting, sorry for that.

@Butterblume: search for the threads here that offer home-brewn negative qualities.
Kyoto Kid
...Grinder, good resource.

I've been trying to get my GM to allow some of these, particularly Dain Bramaged which actually fits KK4.3's bio better than Uneducated.

I also applaud the return of Distinctive Style which is something the original KK had (she was quite the flamboyant one).

I have been working on a few of my own & will post to the them to the Homegrown thread later.
Butterblume
I think I know all homebrewn flaws for SR4 (I like the term flaw better than negative quality... altough edge for positive quality wouldn't work wink.gif).[Edit: only the flaws in this forum, of course]

Dain bramage would be of similar effect, but not as hard. But, my character prides herself on her good-working mind. She is of course a dwarf, very perceptive, very stealthy and very athletic. I really hope that combination can her keep out of trouble.
Unless she hacks, when she is surprised then she'll be screwed.
Grinder
Personally, I love Grim Servant o' Death. biggrin.gif
Glyph
Clairvoyance and Shapechange are perfectly viable as Force: 1 spells, but they are both definitely better at higher Force. Clairvoyance has a range of Force x Magic (in other words, Clairvoyance at Force: 2 has twice the range of Clairvoyance at Force: 1). For shapechange, you add one point to the critter's base physical Attribute ratings for every hit. So at Force: 1, you can have +1 to the critter's base physical Attributes. At Force: 5, you can have up to +5 to the critter's base physical Attributes. This may not matter as much if you are mainly using it to turn into small critters to sneak into places.
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