So, I was building a mundane witch-hunter character with spirit pact and I just got to thinking, the Spirit Pact rules, with only a little bit of tweaking, present an interesting possibility.

Cleric
10 Positive Quality

A Cleric is an Awakened character who has pledged to serve a powerful free spirit, one bordering on Godhood. In exchange for loyal service, the Cleric's Patron Spirit grants him a measure of magical power.

Clerics differ from other religiously devout Awakened characters in that their Magic Ratings are not their own. A Cleric's Magic Rating is the result of a pact with a Free Spirit Patron. Whether Clerics were mundanes granted power or if they just have their Latent potential artificially Awakened is unknown; either way, they are totally dependent on their Free Spirit Patrons for their powers.

A Cleric may learn and use any skill in the Sorcery Group, but cannot learn spells.
Instead, a Cleric must pray for spells utilizing a Holy Symbol (a copy of his Patron's Formula). A Cleric may pray for a number of spells equal to his Magic Rating. If the Patron chooses, it may grant the Cleric the Innate Spell power for each spell the Cleric prayed for. It may also give the Cleric spells that were not on his list (limited by the Cleric's Magic Rating) or refuse to give certain spells.
Spells given this way may be revoked at any time and are automatically lost if not renewed by prayer every 24 hours.

Clerics can use counterspelling without restriction, can banish unnamed spirits (and can learn Banishing for this purpose), and can Enchant.

Clerics cannot astrally perceive or project, conjure or bind spirits, have Adept Powers, have a Resonance Rating, banish Free Spirits, have a Mentor other than his Patron, or be Aspected.

A Cleric who initiates doe not gain a metamagic. Instead, they gain an additional revokable Pact with his Patron.

It doesnt even have to be a free spirit powerful enough to border on godhood, it could just be a low power free spirit that's convinced some addled priest that it really is a god. You could create all this as just an aspected magician with a spirit pact. Just give the spirit Endowment and you've got your miracle-granting rules.

You just described a 1st-edition shaman.

If a mundane can take this it would crack the circle of Mages Only in the world. I don't know if I like that.

Here's something I'm not clear on. If the magic rating doesn't actually belong to the cleric but is just "bestowed" by the spirit would it be effected by essence loss to cyberware?

Perhaps a neater way to do it is to change the merit to "Natural Channel," allowing use of Summoning/Binding skills and, over time, the Channeling metamagic? Or just a Conjuring-aspected member of a possession tradition?

I really don't like it... Besides that I don't like the whole "bordering on Godhood" thing, it would be much simpler to play a shaman who follows his "deity" and "prays" for all his spells - or thinks at least, that he got his magic powers from the gods. I don't really see the need for a "cleric".

Is that, in fact, not what the Christian Theurgy magical tradition, amongst others, does?

Nope. Theurges manipulate magic. Their tradition does not say that they receive their power directly from God through prayer. They say that God made magic and they use it.

Incantation Geas: Prayer, and a bit of self-delusion, ought to sort that.

The point, which I think some people are missing, is the flexible spell selection mediated by GM fiat. Because the Cleric does not spend BPs or karma to learn spells, he can essentially adapt his spell selection to any challenge on the fly. Patronage keeps this from being totally broken and gives the GM some interesting possibilities to work with.

Since the Patron determines the Cleric's spell selection and probably has the Divination, the GM can tailor a Cleric's spell selection to the challenges that he intends to present, sort of like Reaper (new CW series), only more useful and less annoying.
When the Cleric initiates, the flexible spell selection becomes a Flexible Power selection, potentially giving the Cleric access to a host of spirit powers.

It could be achieved simply by modifying the Magic Pact to be permanent, I know, but I came to the conclusion that doing so would simply be too powerful out of Chargen.

Still broken (not blue magic broken, but broken). Still silly. Play someone with a mentor spirit instead.

I like your mode of thinking Hyz, but I'd have to put it to the test before I'd accept it wholesale.

The one glaring problem I see is not with the rules, but with the player. Since the GM is the ultimate arbiter of what spells the cleric gets, I think a player could feel a bit "screwed" when the party hits a big combat and his deity didn't decide to prepare him for it with some damaging spells. Its tough, but workable I think.

Since my campaign is a fantasy world that uses the ruleset for SR4 I've been over some ideas like this one so far. My experience thus-so-far has led me to regard being a "cleric" as identical to being any other tradition mage. I treat mentor spirits as tradition-specific, all of which are saints or avatars associated with a particular god.

I do like the idea for a non-traditional caster, but it could use some scrubbing to address some of the issues (like the one I mentioned above) before its airtight.

Paladin
10 Positive Quality

A Paladin is an awakened Character who wields a large greatsword.

Paladins differ from other religiously devout Awakened Characters in that their Magic Ratings t0lt4lly pwn j00. Paladins must have high charisma so that they can look dashing, and adventerous.

A Paladin may learn and use any skill. And receive +10 to all attributes.

Paladins can use counterspelling ftw!

A Paladin who initiates does not gain metamagic, even if that Paladin happens to be Chuck Norris - In which case, he already had all the metamagic there was, n00b!

How about this,

Faith: 10 point positive quality

With the use of a holy symbol may hold twisted spirits at bay (opposed Force vs Will + Chr check)

May learn banishing and banish twisted spirits using (Chr + Banishing)

+2 to banishing twisted spirits if a magic user

Due to their hight than usual connection with their god, they may occasionally get precognition (gm's option), and can request advice from their divinity (Natural Willpower + charisma (8)) which of course would alway come in a cryptic form of feelings and self suggestions.

They must follow their faith strictly of loose these ability's.

this was just put together quickly, pull it apart and 'fix' it as you see fit

Mentor spirits cover this pretty well. Not every "new concept" needs new rules and a new BP cost. Just use the existing Mentor system and design or pick existing Mentors to represent the deities you wish to have available for clerical worship.

It doesn't matter if I say my understanding of astral - quantum interaction allows me superheat the air to burn targets, the spirits have shown me how to manipulate fire into a weapon or I channel the flames of Moradin's furnace (D&D dwarven god) to smite my foes. Fireball is fireball, still works the same.

if you want to have a praying magic user, build it into the mentor. Negative: The character must pray for one hour for his magic daily. If the character has not prayed for his mystical abilities in the past 24 hrs, he suffers a -2 dice penalty on all tests involving awakened skills.

The same goes for psionics, psionics is just a new tradition/mentor spirit. (In SR3 it gave a bonus for Mental spells and a penalty for Physical, IIRC)

If you deviate too much from the tradition and mentor system, particularly when it can provide what you are looking for, you will create a great deal of unnecessary work for yourself to maintain balance.

Very disappointing... When I saw the thread I was like "oo! Someone is thinking of how to use the rules to create an archetype which both seems like it could be useful, but also calls up the nostalgia of D&D." I was wrong. Instead, someone is proposing a wacky house rule to accomplish something rules can already do.

A cleric could very easily be a full or aspected mage with a totem that gives bonus to health spells. A cleric would primarily take health and protection type spells, and maybe a few combat spells. My vision of a shadowrun cleric would be a tough character in heavy combat armor, carrying a big gun (like an LMG or Ares Alpha), with magical abilities focused on sorcery. Their job would be to throw up barriers to shield the team, heal anyone who gets wounded, and unleash hell with firearms. This creates something much like the D&D cleric - wears heavy armor and has good HP, so they can take punishment, decent at using good weapons, and primarily support based magic. The magic system in Shadowrun is flexible enough that you can do all of these things. You don't need a special rule for any of it, not even for serving a god - just check street magic on which totems represent which gods in various religions. Magical traditions encompass a "divine" magic user 100%.

What I'd be interested to see is a character build that comes close to being a D&D cleric. I think it's an archetype that would be really fun and useful in Shadowrun. For once, a mage with some armor who doesn't need to try and hide the whole battle, one who relies on firepower, and has a lot of the good support spells that combat mages don't usually take.

I'm actually working on exactly such a character at the moment. High reaction, heavily armored, lots of support spells and a bitch in combat. The main problem so far is running out of build points with skills. Of course I've also been watching too much Trinity Blood again...