Character Name: Samus
Profession:
Sex: Male

Build Points Max: 400
Build Points Used: 400

Nuyen:
Build points spent on Nuyen(15)
Nuyen: 75000

Race:
Race:Troll
Build points spent on Race (40)
Race Notes:
Troll: Natural Thermographic Vision and +1 Reach and +1 natural armor (cumulative with worn armor)

Contacts:
Build Points spent on Contacts (
Contact # 0 Fixer Loyalty: 2 Connection Rtg: 2
Contact # 1 Medical Supply Dealer Loyalty: 1 Connection Rtg: 3

Attributes:
Build points spent on Attributes (240)
Attributes: (min/current/max)
Agility 1 / 4 / 5
Body 5 / 5 / 10
Reaction 1 / 4 / 6
Strength 5 / 5 / 10
Charisma 1 / 2 / 4
Intuition 1 / 2 / 5
Logic 1 / 5 / 5
Willpower 1 / 5 / 6
Essence 1 / 6 / 6
Magic 1 / 6 / 6
Magic Points allocated to Magician: 3
Magic Points allocated to Adept: 3
Resonance 0 / 0 / 6
Edge 1 / 1 / 6

Derived Attributes:
Initiative 6
Memory 10
Composure 7
Judge Intentions 4
Lift/Carry 10

Walking Rate (m/turn): 15
Running Rate (m/turn): 35
Swim Rate (m/turn): 7
Lift w/out test (kg/lbs): 50/110
Overhead Lift w/out test (kg/lbs): 25/55

Condition Monitors:
Physical Track: 11
Stun Track: 11

Active SKILLS:
Build points spent on Active Skills:(90)
First Aid (Log) RANK 4 Specialization: Combat Wounds
Medicine (Log) RANK 4
Spellcasting (Mag) RANK 6 Specialization: Healing Spells
Summoning (Mag) RANK 1
Pistols (Agi) RANK 3 Specialization: Semi-Automatics
Dodge (Rea) RANK 1
Computers (Log) Rank 1

Knowledge SKILLS:
Build points spent on Knowledge Skills:(0)
academic Biology Medicine RANK:5
academic Magic Theory and Traditions Hermetic RANK:3
professional Physician Practice Procedures RANK:3
language Arabic Speak/Read/Write RANK:2
language Chinese Speak/Read/Write RANK:3
interests Music Classic RANK:1
street Organized Crime Corporations RANK:2
street Local Area Knowledge of Shelters RANK:2

Native Language: (free)
English

Qualities:
Build Points spent on Qualities (-5)
Considered Hacker in Regard to some Qualities? NO

Positive Qualities:
Mystic Adept Special Quality (10 points)
Quick Healer (10) Rank 1
Toughness (10) Rank 1

Negative Qualities:
Sensitive System (15) Rank 1
Geas – Chanting (10) Rank 1
Aspected Magician - Healing (10) Rank 1


Miscellaneous:

Spells:
Build Points spent on Spells (9)
Number of Spells Purchased: 3
Heal (L)
Stabilize (L)
Increase Reflexes (L)


Foci:
Build Points spent on Foci (3)
Number of Foci Points 3

Adept Powers:
Number of Adept Power Points 3
Mystic armor x4 (2 Points)
Pain Relief (1 Point)



Gear: 75,ooo Nuyen

Spellcasting Focus (F3): 45,000
Armor Jacket: Nonconductive (6): 2,100
Renraku Sensei Commlink: 1,000
Iris Orb OS: 1,000
Subvocal Mic: 50
Glasses w/ Flare Comp, Image Link, Smartlink, and Vision Enhancement 3: 900
Earbuds w/ Audio Enhancement 3: 310
Survival Kit: 100
Medkit (6): 600
6x Antidote (6) Patches: 300
10 x Stim (6) Patches: 1500
2x Trauma Patches: 1000
Ares Predator IV w/ Silencer 550
Quick Draw Holster: 100
7 x Spare Clips: 35
30 Rounds Stick n Shock: 240
30 Rounds Ex Ex: 300
30 Rounds Standard Ammo: 60
30 Rounds Gel Ammo: 90
Healing Fetish: 500 (Magical Tattoo?)
DocWagon Basic Contract: 5,000
Auto Doc Crash Cart: 4,000
1 Month Middle Lifestyle: 5,000
Magical Lodge (4): 2,000
Fake SIN (3): 3000
265 Nuyen of Basic Clothing

1,500 Starting Nuyen

Soooo where is the rest of it? Contacts, background, ect.

Gonna work those up later if I decide I'm happy with what he "does".


Basically, I'm curious as to how well a "cleric" build will do in SR4. Right now I'm just interested in a mechanics critique.

What's the medical supply dealer for? Does he have access to something your fixer doesn't?

With a 3 magic you'll never be able to heal more than 6 boxes with the Heal spell.

For a troll your body and armor seem a little low. Depending on the GM, you may find yourself under heavier fire than others simply because of how big and scary looking you are.

Yeah, the ability to heal only 6 is a drawback. I believe I can actually heal up to 9 though with the Spellcasting Focus, right?

The focus only adds dice, it doesn't increase the force of the spell, so doesn't increase the cap for hits. In extreme situations you can spend edge to add dice and go past the cap that way, but that won't be much use with only a 1 edge.

I would suggest adding a Mentor Spirit that gives bonus dice for Healing Spells.

To do that, wouldn't I have to go Shamanic? I wanted to go Hermetic so I could stack Logic for both Drain and Medical Skills.....

If you have access to Street Magic, you might want to choose one of the better Logic traditions. Do you really need Magic 6? Does 1 more point of Adept powers really help that much? If you did not max Magic and spent the 25 BPs on Body, you could still have Mystic Arm 2 and Pain Relief and by the way, as written your PC is probably illegal.

Ok first off I'm not sure you can get mystic armor at rating 4 with only 3 magic points dedicated to power points. I'd have to double check that though.

Also I'd strongly advise against a character with only 1 edge. That's really asking for it.

Mystic Armor is .5 per level. So 4 Mystic armor and 1 Pain Relief = 3 power points. Not sure what the conflict is.

you can't have more levels in an adept power than your magic attribute. the discussion is whether or not a mystic adept uses total magic, or just the part of the magic attribute which is applied to adept abilities. if it's the former, no problem. if it's the latter, you've broken the rules a bit =P

So it looks like I can't take 4 levels of Mystic Armor.

No biggie really, I just thought it'd be nice to be able to shrug off all that damage (potentially).

In that case, it might be better to got 5 Magic/ 1 Adept for the PainRelief.

I meant to drop Toughness and Quick Healer and drop Geas and Aspected Mage or drop Toughness and Quick Healer and get more Body. Aspect Magician can be replaced with 2 Incompetancies in the similar Awakened skills and you'd probably come out ahead. Geas is iffy, if your concept requires it, ok, but personal preferance for me is not to have a Geas.

You are deadset on the total Magic 6, huh?

Not deadset on it at all, actually. I'm reworking it with 4 Magic and 1 Adept right now......will be posting a 2.0 shortly .



Another question. How do you experienced folks think this character will play? I mean, he's fairly useful in the healing department, and not bad with a gun.....but is he too limited?

The real limit on the Force of the spell you can cast is not Magic but your Drain Attribute. Even if you can cast a Force 10 Heal(and get 10 hits), but you can only soak 4 Drain, what's the point?

I'd recommend Magic 3/Adept 2. Magic 3 gets you a max Heal of 6, you got 14 spellcasting dice(11 if you are using all the focus dice to soak Drain), Drain soak dice pool of 10(13 if you used to the focus). Your Heal drain at F6 is 4, which 13 can soak on average. My advice is cast at F4, withhold 1 dice from spell focus to soak Drain, for an average of 4 hits and soak 4 Drain.

Oh, and if you are increasing your Body, then it can be better to overcast since your Physical Damage track would be longer than your Stun.

You are going to need a Sustaining Focus, most likely, for that Increase Reflexes spell- you don't want to have to take penalties while sustaining it, otherwise you will have to summon a spirit of man (your only one b/c you don't have Binding) and have it cast it for you, with only 1 level of Summoning and a Magic of 3.

Also, if you are going with Mystic Adept instead of Mage, go for the Improved skill power. All the stuff you have now can pretty much be duplicated by spells as a Full Mage (Armor spell, , Resist Pain) so get things which can't. Swap your First Aid to 6, then get 3 points of Improved Ability. If you want to heal primarily with magic, make a full mage instead. Much more flexible since you can slot in spells for other purposes that already run off your primary ability (spellcasting), if not done with the same bonuses.

And yes, either way, get a Mentor Spirit- I'd suggest Earth Mother for the Health spell Bonus, Dark King for the Perception and Spirit of Man bonuses, or Sun for Heal spell Bonus. The bonuses for Bear (Healing and Resisting damage) are good for this concept, but going Berserk is a huge problem.

I was toying with going to the Qabbalistic tradition and then taking a Phoenix mentor spirit. That'd give me +2 Health spells, and also +2 for Fire spirits, which is the spirit for Qabbalistic healing.


Also I'm just now seeing that I can't use a spirit to sustain unless its bound. I'll have to re-work that, as I was planning on using spirits to sustain IR.




All in all, I'd like to keep 1 point in Adept, simply becasue the Pain Relief power seems better than Resist Pain's effects.

OK, so as I'm working through the rules again, I'm seeing that both Healing and Pain Relief take a long time. Basically I'm coming to realize that all of that is pretty much "After-care" and not very useful in the heat of things.

Is this a correct assessment?


If that's the case, I'm thinking the better thing to do will be to ditch the magical healing and diversify the character a bit, but have a strong background in First Aid and Medicine.

Yeah, there's no reason not to simply increase your Body rather than get the two qualities - instead of +1 damage resistance and +2 on healing tests, spend the same amount of points to have +2 on Body, period.

Remember that your mage side isn't the only one that can boost your healing abilities - you can take the adept improved ability power for your healing skills. Especially first aid - it modifies the skill itself, so that means it increases the maximum damage healable by your first aid skill (and considering that using a rating: 6 medkit will give you 17 dice to roll to treat combat wounds, 19 if you take improved ability: 2 for it, you might very well get that many hits).

*nods*

Really, though, I was planning on packing IR for the benefits of my teammates.....


Going a 3/2 Split with .5 power point spent on Improved Ability: First Aid is definitely sounding good. And that leaves me with .5 power points to mess around with as well.

I'm also working on an alternate that's a dwarf and doesn't use firearms, just spellcasting. *shrug*

Shouldn't a female Samus be a Sama?

In the right play group, the minmaxing benefits of being a female character can't be overlooked. If the GM is male, most NPCs are likely to be male. It's usually much easier for a female to sweettalk a guy out of something.

True on the female thing. Quad bonus if you actually are a female in RL.

Back on topic it looks like you CAN have the higher mystic armor. At least on my last read. The errata didn't change the example in the book (where the person alocates one MP to adept skills and gets a level 4 power). I thought the FAQ overode that. But looking at it closer it actually doesn't seem to overide the bbb's statement that total magic is used for determining possible levels of adept powers.

What the faq clarifies is that only the number of power points applies to attribute boost type tests, and that spell force is limited by the number of points dedicated to magic.

Which begs the question: Which is more valuable, the ability to soak an extra 4 dice in damage, or the ability to cast health spells at F8?

It's the same thing if you have Increased Physical Attribute (Body).
At force 8, you got at least 4 or 5 more body to soak damage with. Only works with mask, extended mask, and quickening/sustaining focus though.

non-sequitur?


My question was in reference to using 2 Adept power points for 4 levels of mystic armor (and thus being able to soak an add'l 4 dice damage) vs. using one of those Magic points to give me a 4 Magic and thus be able to cast Health spells at Force 8.

It's one or the other, chummer.

Well earlier we were thinking that you didn't have a choice. Using 1 PP to get level 4 mystic armor wouldn't work.

However now you have to decide after all.

Note that you can still cast higher force spells, just make sure you can soak the drain. For example increase attributes has a whooping drain of f/2-2 so even at force 6 you only have to soak 1 point of physical damage. You should be able to manage that. Generally you should be able to pull off force 6 stabalizing for only a point of damage or so. Heal could start getting rough though.

Well, if I read heal right, the most I can heal is the force I cast at.

So if I go with Mage 3/Adept 2 I can only heal up to 6 boxes of damage magically. so casting at force 6, I'd have to shrug off 4 points of physical drain.

Assuming I still resist Physical Drain with Will+Logic+Fetish, I'd have 12 dice to soak that off. If I use my Spellcasting Focus to aid, that bumps me up to 15 dice to soak drain (still leaving me with 14 dice to actually score the 6 hits.)

I figure on average you get 1/3 of your dice as hits, so on average, I could handle an F6 casting......



Going that route would leave me 2 Power points for Adept: 1 would go to Pain Relief, the other two could probably go towards Improved Ability, taking 2 ranks in First Aid, and possibly 2 ranks in something like Spellcasting or Binding. (still have to post up a version with binding added as a skill!)





My whole reason for going Troll was simply that I wanted to go a slightly different route. A troll who's not a bruiser seems kinda fun and unique. However, if the BP limitations of buying the race (and getting 5 body and 5 STR for it!!!) are too limiting, I'm working on a dwarf variant who will also ditch the firearms in lieu of some different spells.

you can't take improved ability adept power in magical skills.

Curses, foiled again!!!

Heal drain is based on the damage of the spell target, not on force. Thats many boxes...

So your main target should be increasing drain resistance. A logic-based tradition would enable you to have some cerebral boosters (+ some other goodies). But that is not for a troll to do.

As in other cases, I´ll suggest going magic 5 and not spending BP on that final point. In your case, I´d suggest Logic 4 too!. So we gain some 50 pts to toy with... not shabby. This is the right time to mention that one should not take the aspected magician flaw... and that chanting will come with the first level of initiation, aka centering.

Between your first aid and spellcasting, most wounds should be healed in no time (first aid should do about 3 boxes (5-2) and spellcasting about 4). Choose a mentor spirit to increase this. A real cleric (catholic) with patron saint perhaps?

Spirits can aid in casting spells such as Health Spells. I'd drop magic to a 5 and use those 25 points freed up to get summoning at 4 specialized in whatever adds to the Health Group. Consider adding a Decrease Willpower and/or Decrease Charisma spell. Great for interrogation and, if roleplayed wel, for intimidation at gunpoint. Touch based to be sure, but hey... no plan is perfect.

A Power Focus adds to everything from "pressing through" a Ward to summoning spirits. Its awesome and prohibitevely expensive after char gen. Spellcasting foci can't compare.

Stabilize is a bit of a waste for a spell. Get better at healing and you shouldnt need it.

Also, Fetish-required spells have extra dice to resist drain.

A spirit of man thats at least force 3 can cast any 1 spell you can cast. Have a spirit of man use healing on the ENEMY at force 1 and their own mage won't be able to heal them since heal can only be used once oer set of wounds. That's an effective way to use a specialized healer offensively. Sure, you'll heal them for 1 point but who cares when they can't interrupt your run for days afterwards while DocWagon patches them up.

Lastly, contacts with low loyalty really aren't contacts... get those through play. I'd get 1 good contact at a 3/3 or better before a 1/2 or 1/3.