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TheOOB
I'm starting a shadowrun character soon, and I'm playing the groups magician and I was wondering if I could have a little help improving my build. Currently it is a work in progress and I'm just having trouble fitting everything I need into him with the availble BP. Any suggestions/ideas?

Note: Using a varient where you get 3xyour charisma as bonus BP for contacts

Total 400 BP

Elf(30 BP)

Primary Stats(200 BP)
Body: 4
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 2
Charisma: 7
Logic: 3
Intuition: 4
Willpower: 5

Special Stats(40 BP)
Edge: 1
Magic: 5

Qualities(-15 BP)
Magician(Black Magic)
Mentor Spirit(Seductress)
Mild Uncommon Allergy(Garlic)
Sensitive System
Spirit Bane(Beast Spirits)
Weak Immune System

Active Skills(120 BP)
Assensing: 1(4 BP)
Binding: 4(16 BP)
Counterspelling: 4(16 BP)
Infiltraition: 3(12 BP)
Influcence Skill Group: 1(10 BP)
Intimidation: 1(4 BP)
Perception: 3(12 BP)
Pistols(Semi-Automatic): 1(6 BP)
Spellcasting: 4(20 BP)
Summoning: 6(20 BP)

Knowledge/Language Skills(21 Free Points)

Ancient Mythology: 4
Behavior Psychology: 3
(L)English: N
(L)Japanese: 3
(L)Latin: 3
Magical Theory: 2
Seattle Night Clubs: 2
Seattle Shadow Magic: 2
(L)Sperethiel: 2

Spells(24 BP)
Heal
Improved Invisibility
Increased Reflexes
Influence
Levitate
Mind Probe
Orgy(Street Magic)
Stunball

Contacts(21 Free Points)
Fixer(L3/C5)
Joygirl(L5/C1)
Tailsmonger(L3/C4)

Resources: 5,000 Nuyen(1 BP)
fistandantilus4.0
Just as a suggestion, if you're going for a manipulator,, you might want to switch out Levitate for something like Mob Mind. That way you also have an area effect spell that can do a bit more besides incur modifiers in combat.
Ravor
A few quick suggestions (If I have time tomorrow I'll look at it in more detail.)

-1- You might want to think about boosting your Logic to 5 as well for the added Drain Soak.

-2- You definently will want more Edge, not only for the added dice in a pinch, but you never know when you'll have to pull a 'Hand of God' to escape certain death.

-3- Think about burning a Magic Point for some Cyber. I'd recomend;

Cybereyes (R3)
-Ultrasound Sensor (Subject to DM approval, but remind him that it was perfectly legal in SR3.)
-Flare Compensation
-Low-Light Vision
-Thermographic Vision
-Vision Enhancement (R3)
-Vision Magnification
Datajack or Cerebral Booster (R1) (Personally I like Datajacks for both style and realibity, but if your DM runs Trodes as having no downsides, then go for the Cerebral Booster for the added Drain Resist.)
Platelet Factories (Only if your DM allows it to work with Drain, and according to RAW it should.)
Sleep Regulator (A must have for every Mage/Decker/Rigger in my opinion.)
Pain Editor (Not legal at char gen, but you should save every last Nuyen that you can for this baby.)

-4- Maybe not at char gen, but you should think about getting at least one Indirect Area Effect combat spell now that it's settled that yes, they can hit things that aren't LOS.

-5- Think about losing the Binding Skill for now, and personally I've always had better luck buying two skills at 5 instead of maxing one out at 6. Also at char-gen Specialations tend to be a waste of BP UNLESS you are maxing out your primary abilities with it. Buy your semi-auto specialation with Karma. Also buy Dodge-(Ranged), and think about investing in the First Aid skill with whatever extra Karma you might have. For those times when you need to survive in close combat I'd either pick up a Touch Combat Spell, Unarmed Skill, or both...


However, remember that at the end of the day, its your character and as long as you have fun, then its the right one for you.

*EDIT*

Oops, my bad, forgot that Black Magic was a Charisma+Will Tradition forget everything that I said mentioning Logic as increasing your Drain Resist... Also First Aid is no longer such a good deal, although I still think that it helps to have a least a few points in it.
ShadowDragon
Looks solid. The 1 edge will hurt though. I'd probably switch intuition and reaction too.
dionysus
QUOTE (Ravor)

-5- Think about losing the Binding Skill for now, and personally I've always had better luck buying two skills at 5 instead of maxing one out at 6. Also at char-gen Specialations  tend to be a waste of BP UNLESS you are maxing out your primary abilities with it.

This is not the first place I've heard that, I went and looked at the BBB, and it says 2 BP for a specialization, and 2 karma as well. I'm sure there's some cleverness I'm overlooking, but why is it better to wait for karma?

2bp for getting another 2 dice with a specific weapon or such *seems* like a good deal, but that's why it says "Target" over on the left there. wink.gif
Ravor
Basically the reasoning is that a BP Point is worth more then a Karma Point, so its usually better to use those BPs on things that will instead save you Karma in the long run.

As for spending 2 BP for +2 Dice, well, I'd agree that it'd be tempting if a character had enough skill with the weapon in question that I could see him using it as his primary attack, and wasn't running short on BPs to put in other areas.

In this build, assuming the use of a smartlink for a total of 8 Dice the odds are:

CODE
The probability of 8 successes is 0.0152415790275873
The probability of 7 successes is 0.243865264441396
The probability of 6 successes is 1.70705685108977
The probability of 5 successes is 6.82822740435909
The probability of 4 successes is 17.0705685108977
The probability of 3 successes is 27.3129096174364
The probability of 2 successes is 27.3129096174364
The probability of 1 success is 15.6073769242493
The probability of no successes is 3.90184423106236
The probability of a critical failure is 5.95374180765127e-05


While by saving the extra 2 BP for a total of 6 Dice are:

CODE
The probability of 6 successes is 0.137174211248285
The probability of 5 successes is 1.64609053497942
The probability of 4 successes is 8.23045267489712
The probability of 3 successes is 21.9478737997256
The probability of 2 successes is 32.9218106995885
The probability of 1 success is 26.3374485596708
The probability of no successes is 8.77914951989027
The probability of a critical failure is 0.00214334705075446


And in my opinion the shift of odds isn't great enough to warrent spending the extra BP, especially considering that he is running short of BPs and has short-changed himself on Nuyen, having only 5,000 Y to spend on equipment really sucks.

(The odds were done with Scott Gray's Shadowrun Dice Pool Calculator @ http://www.unseelie.org/cgi-bin/shadow.cgi )

*Edit*

Although an excellent resource, I was wondering if anyone had made a web-based odds generator for 4th Edition that worked like Scott Gray's Shadowrun Dice Pool Calculator?

Thanks...
pestulens
his genral dice-pool calculator works fine.
http://www.unseelie.org/cgi-bin/dicepo.cgi
Fezig
The first aid skill is made a bit unnecessary since I'm running a character in that campaign who has it, and another person is running a mage who has some quality healing abilities.
Glyph
A good, solid build. Low Edge, but sometimes sacrifices like that have to be made to get everything that you need for a character concept.

I would drop pistols altogether, using 4 points to specialize in summoning and spellcasting (which should be your major offensive skills, anyway), and 2 points to get just a wee bit more in the way of resources - it's good to be able to start out with a good fake ID and medicine lodge, at least.

Binding is less essential, especially for a mage too poor to afford good binding materials yet. I would drop it (but definitely pick it up later), and lower Perception to 2, to be able to add 2 points of Edge.

But that is my own personal preference. Your way would work fine, too.
fool
a gun? of course I have a gun it's called "_______bolt".
Tecla
I just played an elven black mage over the weekend. I was a bit gimped due to trying to be a bit of a face as well. It worked out alright though. I had roughly the same setup as you but took Focused Concentration(2). . Going into the game I was warned to "bring alot of ammo", so I translated that as resist alot of drain. Rolling 14 dice for drain was pretty sweet, I think out of 8-10 force 5 casts I took a total 2 drain.

I'm still reworking the character, will post up when finished.

Kyoto Kid
...yeah, that was a pretty cool scenario.

Mages (particularly elf mages) are probably the toughest characters to give a good secondary skillset to since so many of their BPs have to go towards their primary abilities (and in this character's case, Metatype). That is why I think Adepts are easier to work up as the team's face while still being effective in combat.
fool
I'd probably drop the summoning to 5 raise the spellcasting to 5 and therefore be able to get two more spells. Drop the intimidate and pistols. Extra spells that are particularly helpful to face mages are makeover and (my favorite) fashion. Make that armor jacket look like a tres chic smoking jacket. Physical mask is also extremely useful if you're going to be the face.
Personally I'm not a big fan of the seductress mentor, I prefer things like snake (for the binding) or mountain (for the couinterspelling.)
cristomeyers
Unless your GM has placed house restrictions on mental manipulations and such, I'd almost drop Intimidate alltogether. Phantasm (or, if you're the kinder type, Orgasm) will get you pretty much anything you need to know. Then there's always Mind Probe.

Keep pistols though, remember the tale of the mage's duel:

Two mages have exhausted themselves in a battle of magic. None of their tricks would work as the other mage always had a counter. The first mage says "I studied under the greatest mages, you can't possibly win." The second smiles and says "Yeah, well here's a trick they didn't teach you" and shots the other mage in the head.

Magic is great, but never forget the value of Shooting People in the Face ™.
TheOOB
I've looked at all your ideas and taken many of them into consideration, I'm probally going to be making another revised build today. I found out that our party has at least one person who is a face, and another who has some social skills so I'm going to focus a bit more on illusions and mental manipulation then social skills, which should free up some BP, which as mentioned is really hard to find with a elf magician.

I don't plan on dropping the pistols skill, though I probally will drop the specilization for some extra money for spirit binding materials(Whats a black mage without some bound demons to control?), the game isn't going to be extreamly combat heavy, but a gun is something a shadowrunner should ever be without, especially since I don't have any physical damage spells at the moment.

I'm acually considering taking focused concentraition, even if I have to reduce my charisma/willpower to do so. Attributes are easy to gain with karma, but qualities are really hard(impossible without GM approval) and more drain resistance is always a good thing, especially once I start casting mob mind.
lorechaser
QUOTE (fool)
a gun? of course I have a gun it's called "_______bolt".

One of our mages followed that same philosophy.

He was very sad during the battle we fought in a strong mana static field, where his effective magic was 0. The elven physad ninja was also very disappointed to find that his Increased Reflexes 3 and Weapon Focus 3 suddenly became "Guy with a sword."

On the other hand, the other mage (we had a lot of them) noticed that his 12 dice in pistols with a smartgun + his Predator firing EX-EX still made holes pretty nicely. And my physad, who also had 2 points of cyber, felt pretty effective.

Granted, it doesn't always come up. But being able to choose between direct combat spells, indirect combat spells, mana based, and physical based is a pretty standard tactic for mages. I don't see why you wouldn't add on another category of "non-magical" for shooting other awakened folks.

You use direct stun against the sammy, and a gun against the mage. Wallah!
ornot
I would also be leary of creating a runner mage without any combat skill or equipment. Running is a dangerous business after all.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (lorechaser @ Mar 20 2007, 09:15 AM)
QUOTE (fool @ Mar 18 2007, 02:09 PM)
a gun? of course I have a gun it's called "_______bolt".

One of our mages followed that same philosophy.

He was very sad during the battle we fought in a strong mana static field, where his effective magic was 0. The elven physad ninja was also very disappointed to find that his Increased Reflexes 3 and Weapon Focus 3 suddenly became "Guy with a sword."

On the other hand, the other mage (we had a lot of them) noticed that his 12 dice in pistols with a smartgun + his Predator firing EX-EX still made holes pretty nicely. And my physad, who also had 2 points of cyber, felt pretty effective.

Granted, it doesn't always come up. But being able to choose between direct combat spells, indirect combat spells, mana based, and physical based is a pretty standard tactic for mages. I don't see why you wouldn't add on another category of "non-magical" for shooting other awakened folks.

You use direct stun against the sammy, and a gun against the mage. Wallah!

...that's why KK4.4 (yep, another revision, this one backwards to a beginning character) knows how to use her Ruger Warhawks (loaded with EXEX or Gel, depending on the situation).
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